LOS ANGELES:

Furious pop icon Michael Jackson demanded that top US magazine GQ apologise for publishing a spoof photo of a lookalike wearing Bedouin garb and also withdraw the issue from newsstands.

Jackson’s spokeswoman Raymone Bain issued a statement saying that the exiled singer was outraged over the photos in the May issue of the monthly which she insisted were not “authentic”.

“Mr Jackson has neither posed for, or provided photographs of himself to GQ Magazine. The person in these photographs is an

imposter,” she said in the statement.

In addition to an apology for the photo, which shows a figure resembling Jackson standing atop a sand dune wearing one white glove and with his head covered as if he were a Middle Eastern woman, Jackson is demanding that GQ pull the May issue from newsstands.

But GQ defended itself vigorously against the angry outburst, saying the person in the photo that accompanied an article entitled ‘Where’s Michael?’ and told of the writer’s attempts to track down Jackson in the Middle East, was clearly a Jackson lookalike. — AFP