Actress Brooke Shield, who described her relationship with Michael Jackson as "the most natural and easiest of friendships", has revealed that the pop star wanted to marry her but she turned it down.

The actress, who fought back tears as she remembered her long-term friendship with Jackson in a memorial service yesterday, said that Jackson proposed to her because he was afraid of losing her.

"There were times when he would ask me to marry him, and I would say, 'You have me for the rest of your life, you don't need to marry me, I'm going to go on and do my own life and have my own marriage and my own kids, and you'll always have me," Shields said in an interview to Rolling Stone magazine.

"I think it made him relax. He didn't want to lose things that meant something to him," she added.

The 'Blue Lagoon' actress married televison writer Chris Henchy in 2001 after her divorce to Tennis player Andre Agassi.

Shields, now 44, first met Jackson when she was 13 year old and she has always maintained that they shared a unique bond of friendship.

"Both of us needed to be adults very early but when we were together, we were two little kids having fun," she had said recalling their early fame.

"Michael always knew he could count on me to support him or be his date. ... We had a bond and maybe it was because we both understood what it was like to be in the spotlight from a very, very young age," Shields said at the memorial.