President Barack Obama, who sent a private condolence letter to the Jackson family, spoke publicly about the death of Michael Jackson Thursday.
“I’m glad to see that he is being remembered primarily for the great joy that he brought to a lot of people through his extraordinary gifts as an entertainer,” Obama said in an AP interview.
The president said he grew up on Jackson’s music and “I still have all his stuff on my iPod.”
“I think that Michael Jackson will go down in history as one of our greatest entertainers,” Obama said. “His brilliance as a performance also was paired with a tragic and in many ways, sad personal life.”