Questions continue to swirl about how Michael Jackson apparently died from a prescription-drug overdose. After discussing Jackson’s medical history with several people personally familiar with it, The Daily Beast has uncovered new details about his early pill dependencies, including the role of an influential friend: Elizabeth Taylor.
Jackson idolized Taylor, multiple sources confirmed, holding her up as if she were the actual title character from Cleopatra, which he had watched dozens of times, bringing his friends regularly to meet her. Jackson told one she was “a mythical figure.”
And it was Taylor who endorsed Arnold Klein, the cosmetic dermatologist to Hollywood’s A-list, to Jackson. One of Klein’s nurses, Debbie Rowe, later married Jackson and was the surrogate mother for his first two children. One tabloid report even suggested since the pop star’s death that Klein was the biological father of those children, something he dismissed outright.