SANTA MARIA, Calif. (AP) – One witness, a glamorous figure on a movie screen, lauded Michael Jackson as a father figure. The other, a plainly dressed mother in the courtroom, scorned the pop star as a child molester who held her family prisoner.

It was the same person, the mother of Jackson’s accuser, in a surreal courtroom scene in which the live witness contradicted virtually everything her videotaped self had to say and became so combative that Judge Rodney S. Melville ordered jurors to disregard some of her remarks.

“I’ve waited two years for this!” she exclaimed when she was ordered to simply answer questions directly and stop making speeches during her cross-examination.

The woman and her family heap accolades on Jackson in the 2003 video, which jurors saw Friday for the fourth time in the trial. Prosecutors who accuse the singer of molesting the woman’s cancer-stricken son claim Jackson’s aides forced the family to praise him in response to a damaging documentary.

The witness fended off a fast-moving barrage of questions from defense attorney Thomas Mesereau Jr. with both lengthy narratives and pithy barbs criticizing him. He forced her, however, to acknowledge that she had lied at least twice while under oath in an unrelated lawsuit.

Mesereau, who is trying to portray the accuser’s mother as a con artist who preyed on celebrities, fired back at the witness. When she said she performed poorly on the videotape because she is a “bad actress,” he responded, “I think you’re a good one.”

Melville chastised Mesereau for unprofessional conduct, but also asked the woman to refrain from delivering lengthy answers unrelated to attorneys’ questions, telling her, “It’s as much your fault.”

The witness’s demeanor defied most courtroom conventions. She criticized Mesereau, turned to jurors and complained to them about what she was being asked.

Asked about a report she made against her ex-husband accusing him of molesting her daughter, the woman refused to answer the question directly and instead turned to the jury and said, “No, he’s wrong.” But ultimately, she agreed she had made such a report.

Cross-examination of the witness is expected to continue when court resumes Monday.

Jackson, 46, is accused of molesting a 13-year-old former cancer patient, plying the boy with alcohol, and holding his family captive at his Neverland ranch and elsewhere in February and March 2003 to get them to make the so-called rebuttal video.

The mother and her three children, including the accuser, were videotaped offering testimonials to Jackson’s kindness and describing themselves as his family.

The woman insisted that almost everything on the video – even breaks where she jokes with her son about gang signals and he complains about his seat – was intricately scripted by Jackson aides. At one point in the tape, the accuser speaks at great length about the agonies of undergoing cancer treatment.

“Do you believe what (he) was saying was the truth or not?” Mesereau asked the boy’s mother.

“I believe what he was saying was according to a script,” she said.

The woman suggested that she met with one of Jackson’s associates 10 times at Neverland to discuss what she would say on the video. Mesereau noted that she had never said this before in interviews with police or prosecutors, and suggested she was trying to enhance her story.

Mesereau focused on what he calls the woman’s bogus lawsuit against a department store. The family received more than $150,000 in 2001 after alleging they were roughed up by JC Penney security guards.

Mesereau noted that in a sworn deposition taken during the suit, the woman said she had never been abused by her husband at the time – a factor because her alleged injuries may have been caused by such violence.

“You were not telling the truth under oath when you made those statements,” Mesereau said.

The woman eventually responded, “This is correct,” but explained that she lied because she was embarrassed about the abuse. She also acknowledged being untruthful when she said in the lawsuit that her husband was honest.

The witness also sparred with Mesereau when he asked whether Jackson associates took her to get a “body wax.”

“Incorrect,” she said. “I had a leg wax.” After another question, she turned to the jury and said, “His statement is inaccurate. He keeps saying body wax.”

Earlier in the day, prosecutors concluded their questioning of the woman by showing jurors videotapes found in a private investigator’s office to demonstrate that Jackson associates had closely monitored the boy’s family while he, his mother and siblings were allegedly being held captive by Jackson at Neverland.

Looking at some of the footage, the mother identified her parents emerging from their home and her then-boyfriend driving in a parking structure. The couple later married.

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Associated Press writer Tim Molloy contributed to this report.

AP-ES-04-15-05 1955EDT