SANTA MARIA, Calif. — Jurors in Michael Jackson's molestation trial saw a controversial British documentary Tuesday in which the pop star says he sees nothing wrong in sharing a bed with children not related to him.

Prosecutors screened the 2003 documentary, "Living with Michael Jackson," after defense lawyer Thomas Mesereau Jr. finished an opening statement in which he suggested the singer may take the stand his own defense.

The 15-year-old boy who claims Jackson molested him appears in the documentary holding the singer's hand at his Neverland Ranch near Santa Barbara.

"He's really a child at heart," the boy tells producer Martin Bashir, while sitting next to Jackson. "You're an adult when you want to be."

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Prosecutors claim Jackson told the then-13-year-old to "be a man," taught him how to masturbate and got him drunk on wine before fondling him in Jackson's bed.

The defense says the charges are absurd, especially because the alleged molestation occurred after the documentary aired and Jackson's media team was in full-throttle damage-control mode over his comments about children.

"I see God in the face of children. Man, I just love being around that all the time," Jackson told Bashir, who was granted unfettered access to the pop star in California, Las Vegas, Miami and Berlin over eight months in 2002 and 2003.

"One of the most loving things to do is share your bed with someone ... Whenever kids come they always want to stay with me," Jackson said in the documentary.

When Bashir asked Jackson if he thought it was appropriate for a 44-year-old man to be sleeping in bed with children other than his own, Jackson got defensive.

He denied ever having a sexual relationship with a child and insisted that his current accuser, whom Courttv.com is not naming, slept in his bed while Jackson slept on the floor.

"I'm sleeping in a sleeping bag," Jackson said. "I have slept in bed with many children. It is very right. It's what the world needs now: love."

Michael Jackson was interviewed for a British documentary in 2003.

In addition to establishing that Jackson saw nothing wrong with sleeping with children, prosecutor Tom Sneddon played the documentary for the jury to show the sort of world Jackson was living in at the time.

Bashir took viewers on a tour of Neverland Ranch, introduced them to Jackson's children — Prince Michael, Paris and Prince Michael II — and accompanied Jackson on shopping trips where he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars by simply pointing to antiques and pieces of art he liked.

Sneddon also contends that the documentary led to a frenzied damage-control campaign that prompted people working for Jackson to hold his accuser and his family against their will and forced them to participate in a "rebuttal video" in which the boy said nothing improper ever occurred between him and Jackson.

Jackson's lawyer, however, used the documentary to begin building a case that the singer was first victimized by Bashir and then by the accuser's family.

On cross-examination, Mesereau tried unsuccessfully to get Bashir to answer his questions.

Bashir's lawyer noted that prosecutors only called the journalist to authenticate the documentary. Bashir also invoked California's Shield Law, which protects journalists from being compelled to testify about their sources.

Mesereau did get Bashir to admit that he was once found by the British Broadcasting Complaints Commission to have misrepresented the focus of a piece he did on an unrelated story.

"I would ask for contempt," Mesereau told Judge Rodney Melville several times.

Melville denied the request but ordered Bashir to return as a defense witness, if called.

Although Bashir would not answer Mesereau's questions, the lawyer adeptly used the opportunities to remind jurors that Jackson denied any sexual contact with children in the documentary.

Mesereau also used his questions to build a case that Bashir played upon Jackson's love for children and promises to donate money to children's causes to gain access to the singer, and ultimately betray him.

Mesereau is clearly trying to keep his case on the offensive. Just as he attacked the motives of the accuser and his mother in his opening statement Monday and Tuesday, he assailed Bashir as someone who took advantage of Jackson's vulnerabilities.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will prove to you the relationship between a criminal prosecution a civil claim for damages based on the same type of alleged conduct," Mesereau said.

He added later, "Ladies and gentlemen, we will prove that [the accuser's mother and her children] are using this case to win a civil case."

Jackson, who dabbed tears from his eyes during a scene in the documentary in which fans were crying uncontrollably, is charged with performing a lewd act on a child, conspiracy to false imprisonment and extortion, and giving alcohol to a minor.

During his opening statement, Mesereau charged that the accuser and others broke into a liquor cabinet.

Mesereau also noted that the formal accusation is that Jackson gave the accuser wine and vodka to molest him. Mesereau denied the charge, but stopped short of conceding that Jackson gave the boy alcohol.

"You need to understand that the charges in this case involving alcohol are not charges like a bartender giving an underage kid alcohol," Mesereau said. "The charges are that Mr. Jackson gave alcohol for the purpose of molesting. The alcohol charge is directly tied into allegations of molestation. One doesn't exist without the other in those alcohol charges."

Mesereau also acknowledged that Jackson occasionally enjoyed "girlie magazines," but did not address charges that the singer showed the accuser and his brother a suitcase full of porn.

When testimony resumes Wednesday, jurors will continue to hear testimony from Ann Gabriel, a public relations representative who was hired by Jackson's attorney to do damage control after the Bashir documentary aired in Europe and the United States.

After watching the documentary and reading press accounts of Jackson's comments about sharing his bed with children, Gabriel said she decided on a strategy to downplay the defendant's "frailties as a human" and promote his "genius as a musician."