SANTA MARIA, Calif. — A flight attendant who testified for the prosecution in Michael Jackson's child molestation trial told Court TV that she witnessed a disturbing scene between the pop icon and another adolescent but was not asked about the incident on the stand.

In an exclusive interview with Diane Dimond shortly after she stepped out of the witness box Monday, the stewardess, Lauren Wallace, said she saw Jackson cuddle with an 11- or 12-year-old child on a cross-country flight in a private plane the same year he allegedly sexually abused another youth.

The music legend stroked the child's face repeatedly in a way she found strange, Wallace said.

"To me, it was a little odd from a 45-year-old man," Wallace said of the incident, which she thinks occurred in the late summer or fall of 2003.

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Jackson is on trial for fondling a 13-year-old cancer survivor in late winter 2003.

Wallace said the child on the plane was androgynous-looking and had a first name that could have been either a boy's or a girl's. The child's parents were not on the flight, Wallace said.

Lauren Wallace told Diane Dimond about working for Michael Jackson aboard a private plane.

The flight attendant said the interaction between the two made her "step back" although "it wasn't anything that was sexual. It was just stroking."

Wallace was called to the stand Monday to answer questions about Jackson's drinking habits aboard the charter flights. She testified that he liked white wine served in Diet Coke cans because he did not want his children to see him drink.

His teenage accuser testified earlier this month that aboard the plane Jackson plied him with wine, which the star referred to as "Jesus juice" in Diet Coke cans.

Although the incident upset her, Wallace told Dimond most of her contact with Jackson was very positive.

"He was salt of the earth. He was wonderful," she said.

Wallace, who exchanged smiles with Jackson from the witness stand, said, "I loved flying with him even though weird things did happen. He was so polite to me all he time."

Wallace worked for Jackson on 15 to 25 flights and said she was consistently impressed with him, especially in the way he raised his children.

She said the two boys and girl were "cuter than a bucket of baby ducks," had large vocabularies and a respectful demeanor and seemed happy and healthy.