Prince Jackson has described his late father Michael Jackson as "childlike" and an "awesome" dad.

The 29-year-old eldest son of the King of Pop, who has produced new biopic Michael, has opened up about growing up with the Thriller hitmaker as a dad before his death aged 50 in 2009.

He told Australian daytime TV show Sunrise: "I would love to have kids and, you know, take notes on what he did as a father, but he was always on our level in a way."

Prince explained that while Michael wanted people to treat his kids as "adults", he also loved playing practical jokes.

He recalled: "But when he played with us, he played with us. You know, he got down, and he was playing with the toys and making up stories...

"He just had a very childlike nature that was so much fun, always playing pranks on people and stuff."

Meanwhile, Prince - who described his dad's parenting as "awesome" - did admit that he has realised "a lot" of what he considered "normal" as a child isn't quite so universal.

He said: "As I've gotten older, I've learned that a lot of what I think is normal life is not normal life.

"Growing up at Neverland with my siblings and my father, for us, it was hanging out together as a family, but with the backdrop of elephants and giraffes walking in the background.

"We spent a lot of time playing board games together, reading books, watching movies. It truly was, and is, magical. It felt like your own personal Disneyland."

Biopic Michael - in which the pop star is portrayed by his nephew Jaafar Jackson - ends in the 1980s, before allegations of abuse were made against the late singer.

Leaving Neverland director Dan Reed, who helmed the 2019 documentary which saw Wade Robson and James Safechuck open up about how they were allegedly sexually abused by the Billie Jean singer (allegations denied by the Jackson estate), has slammed those behind the movie for ignoring the matter.

He told Variety: "Why are they dancing around this? It's well-known that Jackson spent a long time with small-boy companions, including taking them into his bed at night and locking the door, which is undisputed - and that alone, if someone made a claim, is probably enough to convict him in a court of child sexual abuse - but with Jackson, none of this stuff seems to matter.

"And neither the estate nor the writer of the film nor anyone else has provided an alternative narrative apart from, oh, he didn't have a childhood, so he needed to spend the night alone with kids, which makes no sense."

Despite being slammed by critics, Michael has performed impressively at the box office and Reed believes this is because of the "myth" that surrounds the Black Or White hitmaker.

The documentary maker added: "Jackson is an American myth, in addition to being an actual person, so he's metastasised into something much bigger than who he actually was.

"When that happens, it doesn't actually matter what the person was, because the person has been transfigured into something that is owned by the culture."