Jackson Aide: He Took Drugs in Bid to Avoid London Shows

A confidante of Michael Jackson says the singer may have inadvertently triggered his own death by purposely taking an overdose of prescription drugs so he'd end up in the hospital and be excused from some of his London tour dates, reports Gerald Posner of the Daily Beast. “Like a child who doesn’t want to go to school, Michael thought he could get away from his obligations if he had a ‘note from the doctor,'" says the anonymous confidante.

The scheme may be why Jackson asked his doctor to stay overnight—to help him if something went wrong. Jackson had been angry that he had to perform 50 shows, a number necessitated by his disastrous finances, though he seemed to have trouble grasping just how bad they were. He thought he could get the number of shows reduced through a "medical escape clause," writes Posner, but he "wound up accidentally overdosing instead." (More Michael Jackson stories.)