Newsflash: Joe Jackson is a total jackass…

Michael Jackson’s father blames his estranged wife Katherine for their son’s death.

Joe Jackson holds Katherine responsible for not doing enough to stop late “Thriller” star Michael Jackson from abusing prescription drugs. Joe – who was accused of beating and tormenting the King of Pop during his childhood – claims he asked Katherine several times to stage an intervention for Michael because he knew the star wouldn’t listen to him.

MJ, 50, died of acute propofol intoxication last June 25.

“Katherine was weeping uncontrollably and highly upset. But I didn’t give her a hug because I was mad at her crying. I said, ‘If you had listened to me Michael would be living now.’ I kept thinking about the times I had stood in front of her saying something was wrong,” Joe spat bitterly in a recent interview with News of the World.

“I couldn’t bottle up my feelings. Katherine didn’t say a word – I had to get away from her. If she’d done what I asked, Michael would be here today. I am incensed with her. She could have made a difference,” Joe added. “In Michael’s final months alive I said to her many times that I couldn’t get through to him – and that she needed to help her son. I had begged her to go over and stay with him, but she insisted he needed his privacy and gave him the slack she thought he needed. A child will listen to his mother more than his father – and Michael was a Mommy’s boy.”

Conrad Murray, Jackson’s former physican, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the musician’s death