A new documentary about the King of Pop is exploring one major question: “Who really killed Michael Jackson’?
‘Who really killed Michael Jackson’?
Jackson — who would have turned 64 in August — died in 2009 from cardiac arrest brought on by the anesthetic propofol. It was a drug that Jackson’s physician, Conrad Murray, reportedly administered to the singer on a regular basis, according to the New York Post.
Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and ended up serving two years of his four-year sentence, according to CNN.
Now, Conrad alleges in the documentary “TMZ Investigates: Who Really Killed Michael Jackson” that the singer abused drugs for much of his life and that his addiction was reportedly enabled by several doctors — something Murray said he was unaware of at the time.
At the time of Jackson’s death, Murray told investigators that he regularly gave Jackson propofol for two months to help treat the singer’s insomnia ahead of touring in 2009, CNN reported. But in the new documentary, which premieres on Fox this month, Murray alleges he believed he was Jackson’s sole physician and was not aware of all the other doctors Jackson was connected with.
“Michael Jackson was a drug addict, and he was a master at manipulation,” Murray says in a brief trailer for the documentary. “I did not enable him at any time during his addiction. I would never do that. I cared about Michael too much. I loved Michael. I haven’t lost that love for Michael, despite the pain and suffering that I’ve encountered.”
In the documentary, Orlando Martinez, the LAPD detective who was assigned to Jackson’s death, supports Murray’s allegations, noting that propofol “was the only way he could go to sleep, especially when he was getting ready for a tour,” per the New York Post. The documentary also reveals how Jackson had 19 fake IDs and would go “doctor shopping” to secure different drugs.
“Circumstances had been leading up to his death for years, and all of these different medical professionals had allowed Michael to dictate his own terms, get the medicines he wanted, when he wanted them, where he wanted them,” Martinez said, per the New York Post. “All of them are the reason why he’s dead today.”
“Michael is responsible, to a great extent, for his own demise, but he certainly had a lot of help from the medical community,” the singer’s plastic surgeon, Dr. Harry Glassman, notes in the documentary, according to the New York Post.
How to watch ‘TMZ Investigates: Who Really Killed Michael Jackson’
“TMZ Investigates: Who Really Killed Michael Jackson” premieres Sept. 6 on Fox at 7 p.m. MDT.
The two-hour documentary comes three years after “Finding Neverland,” a four-hour documentary that chronicled two men’s sex abuse allegations against Jackson, the Deseret News reported.
That documentary, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019, led some of Jackson’s fans to protest in Park City, Utah — including Brenda Jenkyns and Catherine Van Tighem, who drove 13 hours from Calgary, Canada.
“If he was alive, he could defend himself but he can’t. So we are here,” Jenkyns told the Deseret News.
