Night Sweats & Paranoia! Michael Jackson's Doc Reveals Star's Secret Addiction Hell
Fans were shocked when Michael Jackson succumbed to a drug overdose in 2009 at just 50, but those in the King of Pop's increasingly tiny inner circle knew the truth about his private hell. In his new book, This Is It!, Jackson's personal physician Dr. Conrad Murray tells all about his bleak final days.
Fans were shocked when Michael Jackson succumbed to a drug overdose in 2009 at just 50, but those in the King of Pop's increasingly tiny inner circle knew the truth about his private hell. In his new book, This Is It!, Jackson's personal physician Dr. Conrad Murray tells all about his bleak final days.
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Jackson, who first checked into rehab in 1993, had a pill pal in best friend Elizabeth Taylor, Murray alleges: "I later learned the two…complained to each other how frustrated they were that no doctor had the solution to the constipation that was a side effect of the narcotic painkillers and sleeping pills which they both used in prodigious amounts."
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Murray admits he began administering Jackson intravenous sedative Propofol for sleep, but insists he had no idea that Jackson was turning to other doctors for powerful painkiller Demerol— until it was too late. "My impression of him changed posthumous after realizing he had lied to me, by concealing his abuse of Demerol...therefore jeopardizing the quality of the care I could knowingly give him, as well as putting my career and my livelihood at great risk," Murray claims.
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A few weeks before he died, the "oddly fatigued, slightly disheveled" star began complaining to a nurse of "hold and cold sensations" up and down his body. Murray describes the symptoms as "consistent with acute Demerol withdrawal." "All this time Michael Jackson was slowly dying from his addiction, I didn't know and he didn't tell me," he writes.
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Jackson made frequent visits to his dermatologist, the late Dr. Arnold Klein, during his final weeks for Demerol injections, Murray notes: "During the last 60 days of his life, Michael was treated intravenously with Demerol at Klein's office at least 51 times."
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"Michael was hooked to opiates as powerfully as any street heroin addict," Murray claims. "If I had known he was an opiate addict, it would have fundamentally changed my medical treatment."
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During a visit to Jackson's performance rehearsal for his London residency, Jackson was "spraying perfume everywhere" and "shaking as if having chills." "His actions were of someone with paranoia," Murray claims.
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On the night of June 24, 2009, under Murray's supervision, an extremely agitated Jackson received 10 milligrams of Valium, 2 milligrams of Ativan and 2 milligrams of Versed. When he still couldn't sleep by 7 am, Jackson took even more. The doc also administered the star's beloved Propofol.
Murray says Jackson was secretly in opiate withdrawal, though the doctor did not know it at the time. A few hours later, he discovered his patient lifeless in bed.
In 2011, Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and was sentenced to four years in prison. He was released after just two years, but is no longer permitted to practice medicine.