Michael Jackson had been taking a cocktail of seven prescription drugs that caused the fatal cardiac arrest, if reports are to be believed.
The legendary star passed away last night at the age of 50 after he suffered a heart attack at his home in Holmby Hills, California, and failed to recover even after repeated resuscitation attempts.
Celebrity magazine Life & Style has now reported that Jackson was addicted to prescription drugs in the months before his death. A source has revealed that Jackson had been popping pills, including anti-anxiety drugs Xanax and Zoloft and painkiller Demerol, for weeks before he lost his life.
An insider has revealed that the Thriller hit-maker took a suspected overdose of drugs on Thursday morning, which caused respiratory and cardiac arrest.
In an interview with CNN, Jackson's family lawyer, Brian Oxman, commented that the icon was killed by an abuse of prescription drugs, and compared his death to that of tragic star Anna Nicole Smith. He has claimed that Jackson's death is down to the people who surrounded him before his untimely demise.
"I believe (his manager) Frank DiLeo was with him at the time (of his heart attack), that is what I have been told," Contactmusic quoted him as saying. "This family has been trying for months and months and months to take care of Michael Jackson. The people who have surrounded him have been enabling him.
"If you think the case of Anna Nicole Smith was an abuse, that is nothing compared to what has taken place in the life of Michael Jackson.
"I do not know what medications he was taking, but the reports that we have received within the family are that they were extensive.
"I don''t know the cause of all this. But this is something that I feared. This is a case of abuse of medications, unless the cause is something else. This was something which I feared and something which I warned about. Where there is smoke there is fire," he added.
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