Sananda Maitreya has accused the late Michael Jackson of being a "b******" who tried to ruin his career.

The 63-year-old singer - who is best known as Terence Trent D'Arby - had a difficult relationship with his record label Sony following the release of his critical and commercial flop second album, Neither Fish nor Flesh, in 1989, which led to severe mental health difficulties.

However, the Sign Your Name singer hasn't detailed the reality of his life in the spotlight to his two young sons, who are 15 and 13, in case they want to follow in his footsteps, though he admitted the "toughest" part of keeping his ordeal hidden is seeing how much the boys "idolise" the late Thriller hitmaker.

Sananda told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: "I've never told them too much [in case] they want to take advantage of their own musicality - which I put no emphasis on whatsoever. I'm content to be the only person in my family to have ever suffered this degree of success.

"[But] the toughest part was maybe they idolised someone who was a **** to me. It was difficult for me to tell them that the same Michael Jackson that is a hero to this part of your youth, I had to deal with that b******.

"I had to deal with the reality of [how] once he became the financial entity that he became, he became far more important in the grand scheme of things than I ever would have become to that situation."

Sananda - who has his sons with wife Francesca Francone and also has a daughter, Seraphina Simone, 37, from a previous relationship - believes labelmate Michael felt so threatened by his rapid success that he "leveraged" his own superstar status with Sony to have them damage his career.

He added: "I don't have any empirical evidence that I can point to in a court of law and say his fingerprints were all over some of this.

"But of course, he wasn't very comfortable with me."

The Wishing Well hitmaker had a much healthier relationship with his other chart rivals.

He said: "My relationship to Prince, to George Michael, was as it should have been: competitive friendships where [it was]: 'Oh, if you got away with that, I can now get away with this…'"

And ultimately, Sananda feels some gratitude towards the Billie Jean singer because he may have "saved [his] life".

He added: "I have to say this for the record: [Michael] didn't owe me a f****** thing.

"And quite frankly, it might have turned out that he, in fact, saved my life. Because all of my colleagues who went through [this] - George, Prince, Michael - they're no longer here. It may very well be possible that I'm still here because of Michael's interference."