….We think we’ve figured why Michael Jackson avoided Madonna for more than a decade….

Michael Jackson thought Madonna was “sincerely in love” with him — despite harboring a deep-seated envy over his incredibly successful career.

The late King of Pop – who died in June from acute Propofol intoxication – claimed Madonna once threw herself at him, but he turned down the “Vogue” singer’s advances because he didn’t find her “sexy.”

Ouch!

Michael made the Madge Confessions in a 2001 recorded interview with his friend and confidante Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. The bombshell — along with several others on Hitler, serial killers, and his abusive father Joe — have made their way onto the pages of The Michael Jackson Tapes, a new tell-all book penned by Boteach.

“I think she was sincerely in love with me and I was not in love with her. I think she likes shock value and she knows how to push buttons on people,” Michael told the Rabbi. “She did a lot of crazy things. I knew we had nothing in common. She is not sexy at all. I think being sexy comes from the heart in the way you present yourself.”

Although Michael escorted Madonna to the Academy Awards in 1991, the “Bad” star was convinced his fellow pop legend was jealous of his success.

(Shots Fired!!)

“They admire you and know you are wonderful and great because they are jealous, because they wish they were in your shoes. Madonna is one of them,” MJ explained. “She is jealous. She is a girl, a woman and I think that’s what bothers her. I think women don’t scream for other women. Men are too cool to scream for women. I get the fainting and adulation and she doesn’t.”

Earlier this month, Madonna gave a six-minute speech in tribute to Michael Jackson at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.