Liberace's former lover has stepped forward to publicly declare he once had a gay affair with troubled pop star Michael Jackson.

SCOTT THORSON, 45, made his shocking claims to American tabloid the NATIONAL ENQUIRER, alleging their tryst took place in 1979, shortly after they were introduced by Liberace in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Thorson recalls, "The day Michael and I met we hit it off. We spent days running around Las Vegas together.

"Michael wanted to spend all his free time with me. We are only five months apart in age so we had a lot in common with each other."

Thorson claims his relationship with Jackson intensified in London in the early 80s, where Liberace was performing and Jackson was working on a selection of songs with Paul McCartney.

He says that when Jackson visited him at the home of late female impersonator Danny La Rue, he took the 45-year-old BAD singer up to the master bedroom where he tried on new clothes.

Thorson continues, "We were two young men extremely attracted to each other. You could've cut the sexual tension with a knife.

"I was standing only a few feet away from Michael when he motioned with his hand to come over to him and join him in bed. I climbed onto the bed. Our lovemaking session lasted about an hour."

Thorson, who claims he had sex with Jackson again for the final time a day later at LORD MONTAGUE's house in the outskirts of London, says he visited the singer on two occasions years later at a hotel where he alleges Jackson was in possession of what looked like gay porn magazines featuring young boys.

While Thorson's romance with Liberace later fizzled, his friendship with Jackson also deteriorated because of the THRILLER singer's alleged porn habit. Thorson later fell into a spiral of drug abuse and is now battling hepatitis C.

The publication says it put Thorson through a lie detector test over the claims - which he passed in the presence of an expert.

And now Thorson declares he's willing to testify about his alleged affair in Jackson's current child molestation case.

He adds, "If the district attorney wants to talk to me about my experiences with Michael Jackson I would be more than happy to tell him the truth.

"And if Michael tries to deny what I've said about our homosexual acts in London, I challenge him to take a polygraph. I did."

15/04/2004 09:22