EXCLUSIVE: Michael Jackson's Tragic Final Words Revealed — And How They Show He Was Trapped in a Catch-22 Loop of Addiction
Michael Jackson was nearly bankrupt at the time of his death.
June 23 2025, Published 2:05 p.m. ET
Michael Jackson was desperate for money and pushing himself for a new concert residency in the days before his tragic death from a drug overdose.
Now RadarOnline.com can reveal the superstar singer's last words before his death, and his eerie demand that may have led to it.
The singer was in rehearsals for a comeback concert residency.
Jackson passed away on June 25, 2009, from a heart attack caused by a fatal combination of sedatives and the anesthetic propofol.
He was in the middle of grueling rehearsals for his This Is It concert residency, which was slated to take place at the O2 Arena in London between July 2009 and March 2010.
Jackson's former friend and lawyer, John Mason, revealed in his new memoir, Crazy Lucky: Remarkable Stories from Inside the World of Celebrity Icons, that the King of Pop was flattening out after some bad investments and needed some cash.
He wrote: "In 2009, I was living in Reno when I got a call from someone who told me that Michael was in 'really bad shape.' He was trying to tour again, but he had collapsed onstage during rehearsals. Yet, he was back at it the next day. Michael was Michael."
Money Issues
Jackson passed away on June 25, 2009 from a heart attack caused by a fatal combination of drugs.
According to Mason, Jackson was nearly bankrupt when he agreed to the residency, and was about to lose his estate, Neverland Ranch.
The stress of the upcoming residency led tour promoter AEG Live to hire Dr. Conrad Murray to serve as Jackson’s physician. Dr. Murray reportedly began giving Jackson nightly infusions of propofol to help the singer sleep.
As Jackson continued having sleep problems, he demanded more and more drugs from the doctor, in what turned out to be a never-ending loop that would have fatal effects.
Mason revealed Jackson was obsessed with performing during the residency, and begged: "I can’t function if I don’t sleep. They’ll have to cancel it. And I don’t want them to cancel it."
The singer's words show how he was caught in a Catch-22 loop of addiction.
To sleep so he could perform, Jackson needed the massive doses of hospital tranquiliser propofol – which eventually killed him.
And he couldn't perform without his sleep.
Drug Overdose
Tour promoter AEG Live hired Dr. Conrad Murray to serve as Jackson’s personal physician in May 2009.
By June 2009, those closest to Jackson started to notice that the Smooth Criminal singer was "deteriorating" and beginning to show "signs of paranoia, anxiety, and obsessive-disorder-like behavior."
Murray gave Jackson 10 milligrams of valium, 2 milligrams of lorazepam, a 2-milligram dose of the sedative Midazolam, another 2 milligrams of lorazepam, and a further 2 milligrams of Midazolam, all between 1:30 AM and 7:30 AM on the morning of the hitmaker's death.
Then, at 10:40 AM, Murray reportedly gave Jackson a massive 25-milligram dose of propofol that would prove to be fatal.
Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to four years in prison in November 2011.
Pushed Beyond the Brink
Jackson's strength and stamina had waivered at the end of his life.
In a 2021 podcast, dancer-turned-choreographer Toni Basil believes Michael pushed himself to, and then beyond, his limits.
"He had stopped for six years, and all of a sudden, they talked him into doing a tour," she said. "And he's trying to sing and dance and rehearse in a small amount of time. It was killing him, and it did kill him. That's just my opinion, because that's so, so, so difficult."
According to Basil, Jackson lacked the "stamina" she feels it required to "get back in the game" at the rigorous level that both MJ and his fans expected from him.
"I think it had to have been so exhausting and so physically taxing, and you know, he's got to have his hand in it. He's got to be creating it. He's gotta be making decisions. He's gotta be rehearsing all day. He's gotta be dancing like he danced, and he's gotta be singing like he's singing," said Toni, pointing out "the amount of energy" that must have taken.
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As a dancer herself, she said she could only imagine that he would go home so "stiff," "sore," and "hoarse" that he was unable to sleep. And that, she feels, led him down a dark and scary path.
"You go home at night, and you can't even walk because you're so stiff and sore and hoarse, and you can't sleep," she said. "And what does he do to sleep? You know, something that none of us would do to sleep, but you know, he started to figure out a way to sleep."
