TOKYO - Japan's top government spokesman hurried Friday to retract potentially controversial remarks about the late pop icon Michael Jackson, who he said did not appear to be black because of his pale skin.

"My knowledge (on Jackson) was very poor, but I didn't get the impression that he was a black man because his face was all white," Takeo Kawamura told reporters, recalling his meeting with the singer in 1998 at the inauguration ceremony of then South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung.

Kawamura, the chief cabinet secretary, later withdrew the remark.

"I didn't mean anything discriminatory," he was quoted as saying by the Yomiuri newspaper.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Coroner confirmed that Jackson was pronounced dead at 2126 GMT Thursday in a Los Angeles hospital after reportedly suffering a cardiac arrest.

Unlike Japan's former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, who would impersonate Elvis Presley, 66-year-old Kawamura is not known for his love of music.

His hobbies are collecting postal stamps, playing table tennis and exercising, according to his website.