Paris Jackson, 14, tells Oprah Winfrey in a TV interview to be broadcast on Sunday, that the "Thriller" singer wanted his three kids to have the normal childhood that he had missed as a child star.

Jackson, who died in June 2009, was famous for keeping his three children covered with veils and other masks when they were very young. Paris and her brothers Prince, 15, and Prince Michael II, 10, who is popularly known as Blanket, now attend regular schools in the Los Angeles area and make public appearances at commemorative events for the King of Pop.

"I was really confused," Jackson told Winfrey according to an advance excerpt of the interview. "I didn't get why I was wearing a mask. But I understand it now, why my dad would want our faces to be covered. When we went out without him, we wouldn't be recognized.

"He told us that when he was younger, he didn't really have a childhood," she said. "He would always be stuck in the studio singing while the kids were out playing. He wanted us to have that.

"We had a normal childhood - including trips to the children's arcade and restaurant Chuck E. Cheese's," she said.

As the third anniversary approaches of Jackson's death at age 50 from an overdose of the anesthetic propofol, Paris said the loss of her father "never gets easier."

She is trying to launch her own career as an actress, and is due to star in a fantasy movie "Lundon's Bridge and the Three Keys," which is in development by independent producers.

The full interview with Winfrey will be broadcast on Sunday on the Oprah Winfrey Channel cable channel OWN.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Jan Paschal)

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