Michael Jackson's father insisted Thursday night that a Norwegian dancer is in fact the King of Pop's love child."Yes, I knew he had another son. Yes, I did," Joe Jackson said in an interview with NewsOne.com.
The bombshell comes a week after Omer Bhatti, 25, denied widespread reports that he was Michael Jackson's secret son.
"He looks like a Jackson," Joe Jackson, 80, insisted. "He acts like a Jackson, he can dance like a Jackson."
Joe Jackson is separated from his wife, Katherine, and was estranged from his son, Michael, who accused him of being abusive.
He was criticized for plugging his new recording company to reporters in his first statements after his son's death.
Asked whether Bhatti is Jacko's heir apparent, Jacksaon said he didn't know - but seemed interested in finding out.
"I don't know. I can't say that yet. Not until I see it happen," he said.
Bhatti sat with Jackson's grieving family at the star-studded July 7 farewell to the singer in Los Angeles.
He is reported to be the result of a one-night stand Jackson had with Bhatti's mother, Pia Bhatti, in 1984.
Bhatti has been cagey about his relationship to the singer. Previously, he has said he wanted to take a DNA test to determine their connection.
"Michael always used to say I was like a son to him," Bhatti said in an interview last week. "But my true parents are in Norway.
"The reason I was asked to sit with his family at the memorial service is because I was Michael's closest friend - not because I am his son."
Bhatti and his family lived at Jackson's Neverland Ranch in California in the mid-1990s, when his mother was the nanny for the singer's oldest son, Prince Michael, now 12.
The news broke as a deal was inked giving Michael Jackson's mother, Katherine, the right to raise Prince Michael and his siblings, Paris, 11, and Prince Michael II, age 7.
Debbie Rowe, the mother of the two older children, was granted visitation rights despite once famously saying she had "done absolutely nothing to earn" the title of parent.