Michael Jackson’s Killer: 

AAD, AIDS, or OD?

(Part 1)

Family friend, Stacy Brown, told Jackson biographer, Ian Halperin, that in 2001 Janet, Tito, and Randy staged a drug intervention on their famous brother. He sent them away saying, “I’ll be dead in a year anyway.” 

Was Michael aware of having a terminal disease even then? 

At that time, the star was indeed in desperate physical condition and taking many prescription drugs – not only pain killers, tranquilizers, and sedatives, but powerful antibiotic and anti-inflammatory cocktails. He had cancelled appearances due to “back problems,” “exhaustion,” and bouts with the “flu.” 

In his last years, Elvis had done the same. Both stars had been diagnosed with Lupus, noted for such symptoms and many far more debilitating ones. 

Recently it has been revealed that Jackson suffered from AAD -- Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, a rare lung ailment, with emphysema-like symptoms (making singing difficult if not impossible). He was injected with pulmonary protein from human blood, a treatment usually successful, but not with him. 

In addition to the flu-like symptoms, he was now often bed and wheelchair bound, suffering from severe coordination loss, vision loss, weight loss, shortness of breath, nausea, insomnia, mental disorientation. 

A few of these are symptoms of advanced Lupus, and a few of AAD. But all are the symptoms of advanced AIDS. Queen’s Freddy Mercury suffered from the same symptoms at the end of his life, as have countless other AIDS victims. The day before he died in 1991, Mercury confirmed long-standing rumors that he had AIDS and was homosexual. 

This is not to say that Michael Jackson did in fact have AIDS. Only that his symptoms closely corresponded with those of the ailment, and that it would be irresponsible for any coroner or medical forensic expert not to consider the possibility. 

The disease, as is well known, is most commonly contracted sexually or through transfusion of infected blood. Given his surgical history, Jackson likely received a transfusion at some time. But that he was infected in this manner is less likely than the alternative.

“He was also playing a truly dangerous game,” continues biographer, Ian Halperin (Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson). “It is clear to me that Michael was homosexual and that his taste was for young men, albeit not as young as Jordan Chandler or Gavin Arvizo [the boys Jackson was accused of molesting in 1993 and 2005, respectively)…. In the course of my investigations, I spoke to two of his gay lovers, one a Hollywood waiter, the other an aspiring actor.”

Halperin goes on to say that the waiter remained friends with Jackson till the end, and that the actor provided photographs and a witness. The biographer adds: “When Jackson lived in Las Vegas, one of his closest aides told me how he would sneak off to a ‘grungy, rat-infested’ motel – often dressed as a woman to disguise his identity –‘to meet a male construction worker he had fallen in love with.’”

Though, with Elton John and others, Michael was an AIDS activist, he of course never outted himself or revealed the truth of his own condition had he indeed been HIV positive. This is regrettable since such an admission, though damaging to his reputation in homophobic circles, would have provided an immense boost to awareness and treatment of the tragic condition.