King of Pop Michael Jackson died leaving behind a mountain of debt almost as legendary as his musical career.

On the brink of a comeback tour at the time of his death, it has been revealed that Jackson, 50, was in the red to the tune of about $400 million, despite having sold more than 61 million albums in the US alone and having a decade-long attraction open at Disney theme parks.

The moonwalking 80s pop icon who drove the growth of music videos and purchased the rights to songs written by the Beatles’ John Lennon and Paul McCartney in 1985 for $US47.5 million, was spending up to $30 million more per year than he earned.

Faced with mounting debts in 1995, he merged the ATV song-list, including the Beatles works, with Sony’s library of songs and sold Sony music publishing rights for $US95 million.

As his financial problems continued, Jackson began to borrow large sums of money and a 2002 lawsuit by Union Finance Investment Corp., sought $US12 million in unpaid fees and expenses.

In 1988 he bought the sprawling 2,400-acre (1,000-hectare) Neverland ranch for $US14.6 million, but last year needed billionaire Thomas Barrack, chairman and CEO of Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm Colony Capital LLC, to bail him out with a joint venture deal when he faced the prospect of losing it in a public auction.

In addition to repeatedly failing to make mortgage payments on a house in Los Angeles that had been used for years by his family, last year he settled a $US7 million lawsuit from Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the second son of the king of Bahrain, who took Jackson under his wing after his child molestation acquittal in 2005.

It was during that trial that details of the eccentric entertainers strained finances came to light, with one forensic accountant testifying that the singer had an ‘ongoing cash crisis’ and was spending $US20 million to $US30 million more per year than he earned.