Michael Jackson's Bodyguard Offered Half a Million for Post Death Interview

Michael Jackson’s former body guard is broke because he didn't sell-out MJ to the media.

Alberto Alvarez, MJ's former body guard, who was one of the individuals in the bedroom with Michael when he died and the man who testified today in the Conrad Murray trial, claims he was given many opportunities and offered large sums of cash to blab to the media about Michael's passing.

However, Alvarez says his ethics and his loyalty stopped him from cashing in on Michael's death.

Alvarez claims that as many as 30 media agencies contacted him in the days and weeks following MJ's death. Alvarez says the National Enquirer offered him $200,000 for an interview that he turned down.

He also says he was offered half a million by another news group that he refused to name.

He says he had great loyalty to MJ to not go to the media with information, because now he's broke and out of work and in retrospect wished that he had cashed in on those interviews.

Of those 30 news outlets that contacted him, 9 or 10 offered him cash upfront for interviews. The mags sought insider information about the day MJ died but Alvarez denied them all saying, "It has caused a lot of financial problems. I really don't have steady work. I went from a great salary [working for Jackson] to hardly anything."

He says he's having a hard time finding steady work since MJ's passing and the few times he's worked for other celeb clients they only use him because of his link to MJ, "They try to sell my involvement with Michael Jackson."

Had Alvarez granted the interview in 2009, the world would have learned too much information. Alvarez testified today and had a lot of insider information from that fateful June 25th day.

Today he testified that when he arrived at the scene, he found Dr. Conrad Murray giving one-handed chest compressions on MJ who claimed MJ had a "bad reaction."

He said Michael was hooked up to a catheter and that he appeared like he was already dead. Alvarez then said that Murray had him bag up all his vials of Propofol and other drug-related items and remove from view.

He was also the one who testified that his kids were in the room when Murray found Michael unconscious and the kids were screaming and it was Alvarez who escorted them from the room and then followed the paramedics to the hospital.