It’s been just a little over 15 years since Michael Jackson died. His death shocked the entire world because the singer really was the King of Pop, someone who had been entertaining all of us for decades. Simply put, the death of Jackson felt like the end of an era.
Since Jackson died relatively young, fans everywhere had questions about what caused his death. We know that it was a drug overdose, but was the singer’s doctor really to blame, as most people think? Or did Jackson himself play a more direct role in his fatal overdose?
As it turns out, answers to these questions and more are found in Jackson’s autopsy report. Keep reading to discover the saddest secrets behind the death of the world’s most popular singer.
Michael Jackson was secretly bald
Some of the things revealed by Michael Jackson’s autopsy weren’t that surprising. For example, the autopsy confirmed the singer suffered from vitiligo, a condition that affected his skin color. Accordingly, the singer had tattooed his lips pink and tattooed his eyebrows in order to keep up appearances.
One of the more shocking revelations of the autopsy, however, is that Jackson was mostly bald. On the sides of his head, he hardly had any hair, and he constantly wore wigs for performances and public appearances. To make the wigs look more realistic, he even had a secret tattoo in the least expected place.
An unknown tattoo on the singer’s head
Michael Jackson’s autopsy revealed that the celebrity had tattooed a portion of his head black. This ink had a very clear purpose. As the singer wore one wig after another while performing, the head tattoo helped to cover up the bald parts of his scalp that fans might otherwise notice.
Incidentally, while it was a surprise that Jackson had this particular ink, such tattoos are fairly common. Many people get either full-on ink or microblading tattoos in order to cover up bald spots. Those who do so are usually fighting natural balding, though. In Jackson’s case, he was trying to cover up bald spots caused by a decades-old tragedy.
A tragedy stretching back decades
One dark irony about Michael Jackson’s life is that many of his younger fans are unaware of the early tragedy that threatened to ruin his career. Back in 1984, the singer shot a commercial for Pepsi. The finished commercial is nothing less than iconic. However, the production of that commercial is nothing short of tragic.
You see, the Pepsi commercial involved extensive pyrotechnics. This wasn’t uncommon then or now, but in Jackson’s case, everything soon went sideways. His hair caught fire during filming, and both Jackson and Pepsi underplayed just how bad this incident really was. A makeup artist who was on set at the time later described how all of the singer’s hair was gone and his head was smoking afterward.
This explains the bald spots and head tattoo, and Jackson having to hide the secret for decades would have been sad enough on its own. But in a horrific twist, this Pepsi accident set off a chain reaction of events that would ultimately cost Jackson his life.
An unexpected addiction
Michael Jackson simply lived with the hair loss for a decade after the Pepsi incident. He likely felt that wearing wigs would have been enough. After ten years, however, he decided to get reconstructive surgery to try to fix his scalp.
That seemed like a good idea on paper, but it all went terribly wrong. The singer was prescribed painkillers after the procedure and eventually became addicted to them. He later came clean about his addiction after canceling his “Dangerous” tour, and the world hoped he would get better. Unfortunately, addiction would lead to the loss of the singer’s life.
Michael Jackson’s doctor tries to clear his name
When Michael Jackson died, it was due to an overdose of propofol. At the time, his doctor, Conrad Murray, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. However, after the physician was released from prison, he told a very different story, one that revealed Jackson never stopped dealing with drug addiction.
He claims that he tried to get Jackson to stop using propofol because it was so dangerous. The singer apparently didn’t listen, and Murray couldn’t force him to stop. As he ruefully noted, “Michael Jackson is not a guy you can just say, ‘Stop it'” to.
Horrifying overdose secret revealed?
Here’s where things get both sad and shocking: Dr. Conrad Murray claims that he gave Michael Jackson valium and lorazepam but was hesitant to prescribe any propofol because of his earlier concerns. After Jackson kept allegedly pleading for the drug, Murray prescribed a relatively small dose of 25 milligrams.
Jackson’s autopsy revealed that he had way more than 25 milligrams in his body…enough, obviously, to kill him. The doctor claims that he didn’t give all this to Jackson, nor did he give the singer that fatal dose. His theory is both simple and heartbreaking: Murray believes that Jackson had his own stash of propofol and took the fatal dose himself. If this is true, it would mean the greatest singer the world has ever known accidentally killed himself, making one of history’s most tragic deaths that much sadder.