On June 25, 2009, news of Michael Jackson‘s death aged 50 shocked the world. He’d suffered a heart attack in LA just days before he was due to begin a 50-date comeback tour.
Here, in incredible minute-by-minute detail, we detail how his final days unfolded…
March 5, 2009
Michael Jackson announces his ‘This Is It’ summer residency at London’s O2 arena.
It will be the reclusive King of Pop’s first concert series in years after he largely vanished from the spotlight following child molestation charges in 2005.
It will also be his last. ‘This is the final curtain call. This is it and I love you,’ Jackson says at a press conference.
Tickets to all 50 dates sell out within hours. Profits will help Jackson to pay off the reported $350 million in debt he’s amounted from years of lavish spending.
Early April
Rehearsals begin in Burbank, California, with Jackson enlisting the help of old pals: choreographer Travis Payne and show director Kenny Ortega.
Jackson appears happier than he’s been in years.
His longtime makeup artist Karen Faye notes that he is ‘on the thin side’ but appears ‘very upbeat.’
April 12 (Easter Sunday)
Jackson frantically calls his close friend and nurse Cherilyn Lee begging for propofol, a powerful intravenous anesthetic that he’s become used to taking it to help him sleep.
His often affectionately refers to the drug as his ‘milk’.
Jackson begs Lee to find him an anesthesiologist. ‘All I need is something to sleep,’ he says.
Lee says she’s concerned about how easy it is to overdose on propofol but Jackson claims a doctor has assured him that ‘it’s safe as long as somebody is here to monitor me and wake me up.’
May
AEG Live – the tour promotor – hires Dr Conrad Murray, who has previously treated Jackson’s daughter Paris, to be his personal physician.
Murray is promised a salary of $150,000 a month, though AEG will later claim that there was never an agreed contract.
AEG’s CEO Randy Philips also personally oversees the hiring of a staffer to remind Jackson to eat during rehearsals over concerns that he is rapidly losing weight.
Murray begins giving Jackson nightly infusions of Propofol to help him sleep.
June 12
Choreographer Travis Payne notices Jackson struggling during the day’s rehearsals.
Jackson requests that a teleprompter be added to the tour staging to help him remember the lyrics to his songs.
Dr Murray advises that Jackson takes the next day off to rest.
June 19
Jackson has failed to turn up to rehearsals for a week. When he finally arrives back, he is shivering and incoherent.
Show Director Kenny Ortega sends Randy Phillips a worried email saying Jackson seems like a ‘like a lost boy’, showing ‘signs of paranoia, anxiety and obsessive-disorder-like behavior.’
Ortega tells Phillips that it would be best to call off the tour entirely but fears it would ‘break Michael’s heart.’
The show’s production manager John Hougdahl also emails Phillips: ‘I have watched [Jackson] deteriorate in front of my eyes over the last 8 weeks.’
June 20
Jackson is off rehearsals again and Dr Murray holds a crisis meeting at Jackson’s Bel Air home. He assures Ortega that Jackson is ‘physically and emotionally capable of handling all his responsibility as a performer.’
Jackson is renting the $38million, 8-bed mansion for $100,000 a month.
June 21
Nurse Lee receives a panicked call from a Jackson aide saying that one side of the singer’s body feels hot, while the other feels cold.
Lee can hear Jackson writhing in pain in the background of the call and worries that he is badly reacting to a drug.
She says that Jackson should be taken to hospital, but his aides decide to keep him home.
Dr Murray stops using propofol to induce Jackson to sleep for the next two nights.
June 23
Jackson returns to rehearsals.
Ortega describes him as ‘a very different man… his energy, his state of mind, his enthusiasm.’
June 24
Early afternoon
At home, Jackson has lunch with his children – Paris, 11, Prince, 12, and Blanket, 7.
His chef Kai Chaise has prepared seared ahi tuna and salad, alongside glasses of carrot and orange juice.
Jackson appears happy and prays before the meal.
After lunch, choreographer Travis Payne runs Jackson through some dance routines.
7.00pm
Jackson leaves the house in a navy-blue Escalade driven by his bodyguard, Faheen Muhammad.
He’s heading to the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles to meet his team of musicians and dancers for the final rehearsal before they’re due to fly to London on July 2.
Tour logistics director Alberto Alvarez meets the Escalade as it arrives and drives Jackson in a golf cart to his dressing room.
9.00pm
Jackson begins rehearsals. Several people remark that he appears to be in good spirits.
Jackson grins broadly as he sings classic hits such as ‘Smooth Criminal’, ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin” and ‘Billie Jean’.
For the first time, Jackson sees the show’s video accompaniments that will play on an enormous monitor installed behind the stage. He is wowed by a special 3-D segment where a crystal ball appears to float out over the audience.
Jackson and his dancers perform ‘Thriller’. Video captures Jackson doing his signature moonwalk.
Midnight
Rehearsals end and Jackson thanks his crew and hugs his dancers, saying: ‘God bless you.’
He is driven home in his Escalade, asking Faheen Muhammad to stop briefly outside the Staples Center so he can greet a small group of fans.
Dr Murray’s car is parked outside the house when they arrive back.
Muhammad and Jackson’s at-home security team escort him inside and to the foot of the stairs. As a rule, no one except Dr Murray and Jackson’s children are allowed upstairs.
Jackson complains that he is tired.
June 25
1.30am
Dr Murray gives Jackson 10 milligrams of Valium, an anti-anxiety medication, to help him sleep.
2.00am
Jackson is still awake and Dr Murray administers a further 2 milligrams of lorazepam, another anti-anxiety medication, through a saline drip attached to Jackson’s arm.
3.00am
Jackson is restless in his massive Renaissance-style bed.
Dr Murray adds a 2-milligram dose of the sedative midazolam into the IV, to no effect.
5.00am
Murray doses Jackson with another 2 milligrams of lorazepam.
7.30am
Jackson is still awake. Murray adds another 2 milligrams of midazolam into his IV.
10.40am
Murray is finally resisting Jackson’s demands for even more ‘milk’ – but quickly gives in.
Murray will later claim to police that Jackson begged: ‘Just make me sleep. It doesn’t matter what happens.’
He administers a massive 25-milligram dose of propofol. This dose will prove lethal.
Murray stays with Jackson for 10 minutes before leaving his bedside to use the bathroom.
11.17am
Dr Murray responds to an email from the UK-based insurance company covering the liability for Jackson’s tour. An agent says recent media speculation about Jackson’s ill health has left the company considering ‘cancellation’ of the insurance policy.
Murray responds saying press speculation is ‘fallacious.’
11.18am
Murray makes a 30-minute phone call to his Las Vegas clinic.
11.49am
Murray makes a second call to a patient who doesn’t answer, so he leaves a voicemail: ‘This is Dr Murray. Hi, how are you? Um, sorry I missed you.’
Murray informs the patient about the results of a recent heart scan.
11.51am
Murray makes a third call, to Sande Anding – a Houston cocktail waitress that he’s been pursing romantically, despite living with his current girlfriend.
Anding hears muffled voices and coughing in the background. Not convinced Murray is paying attention to her, she hangs up.
Noon
Back at his bedside, Murray notices Jackson is no longer breathing.
12.13pm
Murray makes a fourth call, to Jackson’s personal assistant Michael Williams, but also doesn’t get through. He leaves a panicked voicemail: ‘Call me right away, call me right away.’
12.15pm
Williams calls back and Murray tells him to, ‘get here right away, Mr. Jackson had a bad reaction. He had a bad reaction.’
Williams calls Jackson’s security team who are based in a trailer outside the house.
12.18pm
Bodyguard Alberto Alvarez rushes inside and upstairs to find Jackson lying on his back, his arms outstretched and his eyes and mouth wide open. He isn’t breathing.
Murray begins administering CPR and asks Alvarez to remove the emptied vials of medicine in the room before calling 911.
Hearing the commotion, Paris and Prince Jackson enter their father’s bedroom. They start crying and are escorted out by Alvarez.
Jackson is lifted onto the floor and Murray attempts mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while another security guard performs chest compressions.
12.21pm
Alvarez finally calls emergency services, telling the operator: ‘I need an ambulance as soon as possible. We have a gentleman here who needs help and he’s not breathing. We’re trying to pump him, but he’s not breathing.’
12.27pm
Paramedics arrive.
12.29pm
Paramedics cannot find a pulse but Murray claims that he can feel a weak heartbeat in Jackson’s upper thigh. No one else can feel it.
Paramedics attempt two rounds of resuscitation at Jackson’s home, before continuing efforts inside the ambulance.
1.07pm
Murray rides with Jackson. He doesn’t tell paramedics about the propofol he has administered. Instead, he says that he was treating Jackson for dehydration and mentions that he issued him 4 milligrams of lorazepam via his IV drip.
1.08pm
Murray calls Nicole Alvarez, his live-in girlfriend and mother of his 3-month-old son from the ambulance, he tells her ‘it’s not looking good’.
1.14pm
Jackson’s ambulance arrives at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, two miles from his Bel Air home.
Doctors try various resuscitation techniques in vain, including the use of a pump forcibly threaded into his arteries and heart. More than an hour of CPR leaves Jackson with multiple cracked ribs.
2.26pm
Jackson is pronounced dead.
Dr Murray bursts into tears, before leaving the hospital against the objections of police.
2.44pm
The media begins to report Jackson’s death. Some news websites crash, with global internet traffic rising by up to 20 percent.
Late afternoon
Police begin investigations at Jackson’s home. They find medical equipment, oxygen tanks, syringes and a jug of urine in Jackson’s bedroom.
A porcelain doll of a young blonde boy wearing green dungarees is discovered in Jackson’s bed next to a stack of DVDs of children’s films.
Bottles of propofol and other prescription painkillers are found hidden in bags. An empty vial lies on the floor near the bed.
The world watches aerial footage of Jackson’s corpse in a white body bag being delivered to the LA coroner’s office for an autopsy.
Evening
Devastated fans gather outside Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in Santa Ynez and sing his hits late into the night.
Jackson sells over two million records in just three weeks following his death.
July 7
Jackson’s solid bronze casket with gold-plated hardware makes the 11-mile journey in a hearse from Forest Lawn Cemetery, where his family have held a private service, to the Staples Center in downtown LA for a a televised memorial.
Jackson’s brothers each wear a single white sequined glove.
More than 2.5 billion people worldwide watch the funeral, making it the most-watched non-sports broadcast history. 17,500 people – allotted tickets in a random lottery – have packed into the Staples Center.
Jackson’s 11-year-old daughter Paris tearfully says goodbye on stage, telling the crowd: ‘I just want to say, ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine, and I just want to say I love him so much.’
August 28
Coroners rule that Jackson’s death was a homicide.
The autopsy report details Jackson’s heavily deformed feet, hardened with callouses, and a severe fungal infection.
September 15, 2010
Jackson’s family files a wrongful death lawsuit against AEG Live, alleging that the company was ‘more concerned about profiting off the tour than they were about the wellbeing of the singer.’
November 7, 2011
Dr Murray is convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to four years in prison. He is released early in October 2013 due to jail overcrowding.
October 2, 2013
The Jackson family loses their lawsuit against AEG Live after a jury unanimously finds that Dr Murray was not unfit ‘to perform the job he was hired for.’
January 25, 2019
HBO airs a major documentary, Leaving Neverland, in which two men detail shocking claims that Jackson raped and sexually abused them in the 1990s.