Mark Ronson: "I'm Making No Money"

Music producer Mark Ronson has been warned by his manager to cut back on his huge entourage - because he is not making enough money to keep them on tour.Despite being among this year's Grammy winners with his own gong for Producer Of The Year the Valerie hitmaker is failing to make money from touring.But Ronson is putting his lack of earnings down to the fact that he brings too many friends on tour with him - which is clawing away at his profits.He says, "My manager is annoyed with me, because I always bring so many people on tour with me."The costs are so high that I never make money from touring, but I don't really care about that. If we can break even, I'm fine. This isn't my day job.Producing records is my day job."Meanwhile the music producer was nervous when Michael Jackson was tried on child abuse charges - as the pop superstar used to visit him as a kid.

The VALERIE hitmaker grew up in New York alongside JOHN LENNON's son Sean, and the pair received regular visits from Jackson. Ronson never found it strange that the Thriller singer liked to spend time with kids - but admits when the star was accused of child molestation he started to consider the friendly visits in a new light. He says, "At the time, he was the biggest star in the world. But because my stepfather was a musician, it didn't seem that out of the ordinary."Michael Jackson was a guy whose records I loved, but he just watched videos with us and ran around playing with a toy laser.

"At the time I didn't think twice about it. Now, of course, I look back on it and wonder, 'Did anything odd happen?'. But it didn't."

Jackson was acquitted of all charges in 2005.