This Is It!: The Secret Lives of Dr. Conrad Murray and Michael Jackson

Epilogue

This Is It!

The Secret lives of Dr. Conrad Murray and Michael Jackson

By Conrad Murray

Chapter 1

June 25, 2009. I had not slept in almost 20 hours. I could not then ever imagine that in less than an hour my life was about to forever change. My primary patient for the past three months, the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, would soon be fighting for his own life in a darkened bedroom suite just forty feet down the hallway. And when Michael would lose that battle, I would find myself at the center of the maelstrom of doubts and suspicions about Michael’s treatment, rumors about drug abuse, stories of strange personal habits, and most of all lingering questions about what really happened in the crucial hours leading up to his death. In the ensuing onslaught of rumors and innuendos that passed for news in tabloids, the fact that I was a cardiologist with an unblemished medical history of 20 years would be lost in the frenzy over the demands of the Jackson family and many of Michael’s most ardent fans that his death not be written off simply as a tragic accident, but rather that someone – anyone – pay a price for his early passing.

It had been a couple of decades since I was a hospital resident and worked two to three day stretches without rest. But that training served me well for marathons like this. It had been a trend that continued through my years of training in cardiology fellowships, and only later to fulfill a wakeful career saturated with all nighters, interrupted sleep, giving chase to countless ambulances careening at high speed, flashing lights and sirens to the nearest emergency rooms where I waited to rescue many lives that were hanging by tiny sleeves. I recall looking that morning at my reflection in the large gilded mirror in the private master’s bathroom. My eyes were red from little sleep. Still, not bad for 21, I jokingly thought, splashed cold water over my face and glanced at my watch. Soon I would be going home and getting some rest before attending to a long list of errands. I have a life too, I thought. I had put Michael’s many demands and needs first for so long that I had neglected my own family and myself.

I still had fully staffed medical offices in Las Vegas, and Houston and I was packed with patients request for appointments. They were being repeatedly rescheduled due to the unceremonious disruption of my medical practices caused by both AEG and Michael’s unexpected hasty request, for me to rescue the failing artist and salvage an almost derailed show This Is It. That premature disruption brought me to Los Angeles to take care of Mr. Jackson and his three children earlier than was originally scheduled. Today I also needed to dictate a letter to my staff, one that I needed to urgently send to the Royal College of Physicians to complete the final stages of my registration to practice medicine as Michael's personal physician during his upcoming This Is It concerts in England. I also badly needed some fuel, at least some water to quench my thirst, but some juice would also be a relishing reward.

There was no doubt that my patient was one of the world’s most famous personalities. And the night that just passed had been one of the worst since Michael and his three children had become my primary practice. Michael had battled for roughly ten fitful hours before finally getting to sleep.

Sleep. That word made me breathe a sigh of relief after such an arduous struggle. Who could have imagined that getting someone to sleep could be such a Herculean quest? I walked into a spare room just three doors from where

Michael was fast asleep after I had monitored him for at least thirty-five minutes following administration of a small 25-milligram dose of Propofol infused slowly over 3-5 minutes. At first I leaned against the edge of a dark wooden cabinet in the middle of the large cavernous dressing chamber, then I drew apart the heavy drapes. It was a typically brilliant Los Angeles day and the house’s pool and manicured gardens looked particularly inviting after a night cooped up inside. Next I walked further into a second distant chamber, drew apart another set of drapes, looked into the courtyard, where I might see some activity, maybe the security team or the children lingering or playing there. It's adjacent to where I'd soon exit the property to go home, peel away the fatigue of last night, feel the elements of nature, sunshine, and the cool southern California temperate breezes filling my lungs, basking my skin and rustling through my hair as I probe the environment with the punch and thrust of my roaring 645i BMW convertible. I'm coming home baby. What a night! Night of hell, wow! This wasn't how it was supposed to be. A few weeks earlier I had met with Randy Phillips, the garrulous president of AEG Live, the massive entertainment conglomerate that convinced Michael to come out of semi-retirement for This Is It, fifty planned London concerts. The 5’ 6" barrel-chested Phillips came only high as my chest. Not only did Phillips think Michael looked emaciated, he was worried that his star had not toured in more than a decade. To make matters worse he was not sticking to his rehearsal schedule. Morale was low and Phillips said that given Jackson’s lack of cooperation the London premier was in doubt. Tens of millions of dollars were at stake.

The cost of every rehearsal that Michael missed or rescheduled was placed on his tab, which was growing exponentially. Phillips scowled and gnawed his teeth with disgust. He appeared to be filled with rage as he snarled below his breath, making disparaging and startling remarks to me about Michael. He had made it clear during a previous phone call that he believed the Jacksons were the most dysfunctional family in America, but his statement about Michael today took me by complete surprise; it was one of the most putrefying, rotten and odious set of remarks I had ever heard anyone utter about Michael and his three minor children. I was utterly floored; it left me in complete disbelief.

The show’s flamboyant creative co-director, Kenny Ortega was so worried, and had so little confidence that the show would be ready for London, that he demanded AEG pay his generous fee upfront. Otherwise Ortega had threatened to pull the plug on himself as the co-director of the production, This Is It. I believed Ortega's triggered demand was based on his past experiences with Michael since he worked with the singer on a prior tour and had taken a financial bath because the shows were interrupted prematurely due to questions surrounding Michael’s health. During our investigation of my ultimate trial, we learnt that on one of Michael’s prior world tours, "The Dangerous Tour," Kenny Ortega was the creative director; Michael had to cut the tour unexpectedly short in order to check into a drug re-habilitation program. It was probably that type of experience that shaped Ortega's pay up front policy with Michael and AEG. No doubt Michael expressed his fear and hatred for Randy Phillips, but when left alone with Kenny Ortega in a room, he actually turned into a cripple. Michael claimed that the co-director was gay and for years had placed enormous sexual pressures on him. I never had any first hand evidence that Michael’s claim was true or not, but I have no doubt that Michael evidently believed it. He said it with all sincerity and fear. Michael wanted no such interaction with Kenny, because he always viewed himself as a heterosexual male.

Michael said that the only reason that Kenny Ortega demanded that he spend almost the entire day in a cold, miserable and forlornly furnished room at the Los Angeles Forum, spending hours there before he took the stage late in the evening was only because of Ortega's unrelenting effort to engage him privately in immoral and base affairs. Michael said that no single individual caused him as much pressure with the This Is It production as Ortega. He said it was Ortega who placed so much doubt in the minds of AEG executives about the possible failure of the London concerts that they had begun making additional demands of him. Ortega’s updates had convinced them that the wheels were coming off the train, and fast too. It was only a matter of time before the show was hit with the wrecking ball, would be derailed, and not make it to England. Michael hated Ortega; of that there was no doubt. Michael also believed that Kenny Ortega and his manager Frank DiLeo were both siding with AEG, because they were the one’s with the money. He said he did not trust them. However, as I learned eventually as one of his closest friends, Michael did not trust a lot of people.

I agreed then with Michael that it made no sense for Kenny Ortega to have him come to that cold, dank and pathetically furnished room and sit for approximately six hours before going on stage to join the company for rehearsal. Ortega nonetheless, made his life hell. Kenny Ortega wanted Michael to be present at the Forum and around him at all times, and when Michael was a no-show to rehearsal Ortega became unglued and was the first to start whining and complaining. Following Michael's declaration of concern about Ortega, I introduced a new schedule to have Michael spend more time at home with his children during the day, work out with his shadow coach Travis Payne in the home studio, then go to rehearsal around 6:00PM rather than follow the usual 12:00 to 1:00PM routinely scheduled departure for rehearsal. Michael liked it better after which time everyone became excited about his participation in the This Is It pre concert rehearsals. However, it was short lived because within two days of rehearsals, Michael plunged back to his usual non-participation self in the rehearsals.

He needs to shape up Phillips said in his nasal-toned voice, punching the air with his thick fist. As he grimaced, I just stood calmly and stared at him. His eyes narrowed and his face was a vivid snap shot of frustration. He is not doing a damn thing. Everything is about to go haywire. No wonder Michael had turned out unexpectedly to be one of my most challenging patients. When I had first started treating him three years earlier, Michael shared with me that he had trouble sleeping. He said that for many years on and off he had used prescription sleep medications. However, whenever he prepared for a concert tour, he claimed it was almost impossible to get any sleep. I had witnessed that first hand during the past few months. Michael’s anxiety was so great it had turned him into an outright insomniac. My mind wandered back to that afternoon in Las Vegas a few years earlier when a security guard who was a patient of mine called my office and told me that three children of a celebrity were sick in a nearby home. The celebrity requested the help for a very good physician and he recommended me. This high profile person wants privacy, he said. Would I mind driving over to treat them? I said I don't mind but it had to be near the end of my day since I had an office filled with patients. He said they would wait, so I said ok. Just before arriving, I learned the identity of my patient.

I was contacted by Bashir Mohammad, the then chief of security and Michael's personal assistant with the details and the official request.

Bashir Mohammad introduced himself by telephone as the head security officer for Mr. Michael Jackson and told me that I would have to sign a confidentiality and nondisclosure agreement before attending to anyone. Once I got to the house, I examined the three children. All had viral upper respiratory infections and low-grade fevers. After treating them, their nanny Grace Rwanda, put them to sleep. Michael then mentioned to me that he too was not feeling well.

I suspected that was the case before Michael even said anything. He seemed drawn and I was certain he was very dehydrated. So I ordered a banana bag, saline solution enriched with vitamins and minerals.

During that first night I noticed there were some medical equipment on the outside landing of Michael’s bedroom suite, including an IV pole. That did not seem too unusual. I had seen similar equipment in the homes of some of my other patients. It could have been for anything from serious ailments like cancer, hospice or to something simple like the need for rehydration. But I didn’t yet know Michael well enough to ask about it. On the other hand, it was not unusual when you consider that those with celebrity status like Michael pay a heavy price for it, unlike many of us, and what we consider routine and mundane experiences happen only for celebrities within the confining walls of their homes. Many of them don't get to roam about freely as many of us do, therefore an IV pole in the home of a celebrity could be viewed as normal furnishings for use if they need it.

I administered the banana bag the next day at Michael’s house. When I put the IV catheter into a vein on his arm, Michael became excited.

Wow! That is the best I ever had, he said. So smooth. So easy.

After a while it was clear that Michael was so dehydrated that he would need a second bag. That is when he surprised me by saying that I didn’t have to stay.

Michael was confident he could remove the bag on his own and then start a second. When finished, he tried assuring me, he’d simply remove the IV catheter from his arm and put everything away. But I did not allow him to remove his own IV fluid, I did it myself. He is not, I realized, a typical patient.

On a follow-up visit two days later, the children and Michael were feeling much better. Michael then asked me for a fuller exam. This time he allowed me to look at his feet, something I learnt from him he’d never done with anyone. I noticed that Michael’s feet were covered with callouses. They were painful, he said, and both feet had an advanced chronic fungal infection that discolored the nails and caused the skin to crack and flake. It turned out that Michael always wore socks because he was so ashamed of the way his feet looked. I suggested he needed a podiatrist but Michael was resistant. He had never had his feet treated, not even a single pedicure in his entire lifetime. But after some prodding, Michael agreed that so long as it wasn’t a woman, a male podiatrist could visit but only if I was present. He showed his feet to no one, this time though he felt for the first time ever, that he could show them to someone, and that someone was me.

Chapter 2

Aday after his feet were treated, Michael was amazed that he could walk and dance without pain. Later I prescribed antifungal medications to clear the infection. It was a complete success. Meanwhile, I personally administered regular lotions and massages to remove the rough skin. The simple fact that Michael’s feet – something critical to him as an entertainer and dancer were in such poor condition, was a sign to me that not only had he neglected himself, but that those around him were not keeping a close eye on his well-being.

When Michael asked for my bill, I told him to forget about it and charged only for the cost of the IV solutions. No one in Michael's entourage paid me for the medicines, it was Michael himself who reimbursed me. That reminds me of a short story about Michael. Over time it had become customary that I did not charge Michael for my medical services but he reimbursed me only the cost of medicines. I always provided him the receipt. One day while he resided at the penthouse of the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas, I had to pick up some antibiotics and cough syrup for his children. After I delivered the products and instructed him and the children how to use the medicines, Michael reimbursed me and I promptly placed the money in my pocket without checking it. After arriving home, when I checked the amount, I discovered that he had overpaid me by $5.00. I called him immediately and reported his overpayment and I vowed to get the money back to him the following day. It was then he broke out in fits of laughter, crazily laughing uncontrollably over the phone. He said I knew you'd call me about it. No! No! Doctor Conrad, please, you don't have to give it back, I didn't have anything smaller, but I'm laughing so hard because I knew that's exactly what you'd do, I beg you please do me this one favor, don't give me back that five dollars. I obliged him.

He must have been accustomed to physicians charging exorbitant fees because he was genuinely startled. Only after his death would I learn that Michael told one of his aides that it was a rare mark of honesty. It was shocking, strange and refreshing that somebody gave Michael something for nothing.

There was no doubt in those early days that we hit it off. At first glance, a lot of people in Michael’s entourage probably thought we were an unlikely pair. I was twice married and I supposed I had a well-earned reputation for dating young, beautiful women. I was meticulous about my personal style, with my trademark tailored Hugo Boss suits, and I was often spotted driving around town in one of my many branded automobiles accompanied by a beautiful model in the front seat. Meanwhile, Michael struck many as almost asexual and couldn’t even hear too racy a joke without blushing. He spent most of his time shuttered inside his home, watching old movies or playing video games, and dancing for roughly six hours in his dance theatre daily, thumbing through magazines with and without me, on occasions making something as simple as snow cones with his children to bring them joy and laughter, and venturing out for occasional shopping sprees. At home he wore pajamas incessantly, and when he went out I always viewed him sadly when I looked at his shoes. It broke my heart to see him on everyone of those occasions wear either that same old pair of black moccasins or loafers. The shoes were worn thin and appeared raggedly scoffed, but he never seemed to mind. In his dressing closet, there were no scarcity of outfits, but it was very scant on shoes. Michael was not a pretentious man. I don't think it ever mattered to him that his shoes were battered and worn thin. He didn't ever complain about it, even though he could have afforded to order plenty. His rent and every other living expenditure were supported by AEG, new shoes for him wouldn’t have been a problem, I'm sure.

Michael, so ever shy and wary of strangers, felt comfortable with me. I am softly spoken and he often remarked how much he liked my slight Caribbean-lilted accent. As was my style, I never took my eyes off Michael when we were together. And I noted that instead of making him uncomfortable, Michael later told a friend that Dr. Conrad – as he usually referred to me – made him almost feel protected, feel safe. The King of Pop was as intrigued with me as I was with my patient, and new friend.

Chapter 3

Michael lived in Las Vegas then and was trying to raise the money to buy the Sultan of Brunei’s lavish local estate. I stopped by regularly. Soon there no longer had to be any medical reason to prompt a visit. Most times Michael called to check on my schedule and to see if I had time to stop over at the end of my day. Sometimes he asked if I could pick up a bottle or two of red wine. Because I do not consume alcohol, I relied on one of the connoisseurs at Lee’s Liquor store to make the recommendation. Then I followed with the purchase. Michael occasionally tried to encourage me to have just a little taste of the red wine, but I resisted since I had no interest in alcohol. On numerous occasions when I visited after work, I just listened to him talk. Sometimes he wanted to sit in the theatre and talk about his hours of daily dancing, and the weight loss from all the sweating. He really had many stories to tell. I may have broken him from long spells of loneliness, being cooped up in his home, and it must have been therapeutic for him to have a chance to exchange ideas with an adult, or just let him vent and laugh about nothing special.

He made me laugh too, so many times when he spoke of Quincy Jones, basically lots of guy talk. He also had a favorite dancer, of whom he had fond memories but not of his wife. Many years ago after the Jacksons moved to California, he recalled visiting the home of his favorite dancer, Fred Astaire. He was a lot of fun according to Michael, but he said that his partner Ginger Rogers was a bitch and a bigot. She always appeared to be condescending, or did not care much for minorities, according to Michael. As he said she did not care for him since he was a little black kid. But he was going to learn everything he wanted from Fred.

Even though Ginger might have tried to make him feel uncomfortable, he managed to overlook her and would still visit the home. Fred Astaire was crazy about him.

I said to Michael, Fred Astaire was also one of my favorite dancers when I was growing up as a young man, I could watch him dance over and over, his dancing told a story of its own.

When talking about dancing, Michael said he never danced, but performed the dance much as an actor acted, that was his approach to dancing. I tried to teach him Latin dancing, and also to dance to Soca music. Interestingly, he initially lacked the Latin-Caribbean undulating sway of the hips to the beat of the music, but he rapidly progressed and aptly demonstrated a deft skill at an instructor’s level with this new style of dance. But as you now know, he was only acting the dance. He showed me how to moon walk in exchange. One thing I enjoyed about Michael though was his solo concerts, when he would sing to me almost every morning, and practice his high notes too. He really had the voice of an angel. The first time I heard James DeBarge (Michael’s ex- brother in law) sing, I really thought it was Michael. James DeBarge was a great singer himself. But Michael definitely had the edge on him.

It was absolutely crazy, you won't believe. Our early relationship wasn’t based on any of the typical elements of male bonding, chasing women, drinking, gambling, or sports. Instead, we often spread out on one of the large living room sofas, or in his master’s bedroom, even the movie theater on the main floor. We also watched a couple of movies in his master bedroom that were projected against the wall. In those early talks I discovered that Michael was fascinated with medical science, particularly human malformations. If he had not been an entertainer, he told me, he would have been a doctor studying anomalies like the Elephant Man. I ordered three books for him. Although it seemed a simple thing to do, Michael was so unaccustomed to anyone giving him a gift that he spoke about it for days.

On other occasions we’d talk about how each of us viewed physical beauty.

Michael loved to flip through dozens of fashion magazines spread across the cocktail table and over his bed; we often compared which models we found attractive. The very first time we did it I realized how much more extreme than mine was Michael’s taste. He was interested in anorexia. He wanted women who looked like bones. If you showed him a woman that looked like a bone, he wanted one that was a half a bone. Very thin. Kate Moss seemed too heavy to him. He liked Eva Langoria to an extent, but she would have had to lose a lot of weight before Michael would have approved.

It was one of the reasons that made me suspect my rail thin patient might himself have an eating disorder. I noticed that he was never hungry. Unless he was joining his children for a meal, or someone insisted he have some food, he would never ask for something to eat. And while his favorite meal was rice and chicken, Michael ate little when it was served, claiming always that his appetite was very small. I insisted that he ate his food. His chef prepared meals for Michael but he rarely ate any of it. In California, at the Holmby Hills residence, Michael gave a standing order to his last chef that she prepares a meal for me before she left at the end of each day. She complied with that request and placed the meal in the oven warmer every evening. Fifty percent of the time I gave it to a security staff who was on duty during the night and low and behold let it be told, the meal was not shared with any other, but it was literally inhaled and the dish washed and dried with the tongue, before leaving it outside the kitchen door where it could be retrieved the next morning.

It was just over a month into our relationship when Michael invited me to his personal bedroom, bragging about a new movie projector Sony had given him. Those invite surprised Michael’s entourage. They knew that it was evidence of how quickly Michael had become attached to me, an outsider. Michael’s bedroom was where he felt most relaxed and protected. No employees were allowed there. His own children could only visit if he called for them. Being granted access was a sign of great trust.

Chapter 4

Michael sat on his king size bed while I relaxed in a nearby lounge chair. It was there that Michael tried hard to convince me to become a devotee of The Secret, a self-help book published in 2006 that had achieved a large almost cult-like following. He told me The Secret helped him recover from his depression and regain his emotional footing after his 2005 criminal trial for sexual abuse. Michael kept a tattered copy of the book filled with his ink jottings on folded corners and highlighted passages. He’d share his discoveries with me, claiming that the book’s central themes – the power of the laws of attraction were potent and life changing.

It wasn’t long before I became his disciple, or at least his mission to find a convert. Michael told me that the principals of The Secret – which he intuitively had practiced before the book was ever published were what made him so successful. I’ve used these all my life, Dr. Conrad. You must become familiar with them and make them part of your life.

Michael told me that since he had always followed the principles of The Secret, it was the laws of attraction that helped him to achieve the feat of Thriller. That was the album that first allowed him to realize a long held dream, which was to have multiple back-to-back hits on the same album. Thriller also sold in excess of 240 million copies, a record yet to be broken by any other artist. He also said that he was usually not happy with traditional albums that had 13 to 14 songs of which only one was a hit. That's why he was so thrilled with Thriller since it had multiple hits on the same album.

He respected many other modern artists, such as Beyoncé, Kanye West, Jay-Z and Justin Bieber. However, he felt they were given too much credit for selling a mere 25 million copies of their album. To them that was a great accomplishment, but to him it wasn't. An artist like Prince, for example, Michael hated to be compared to him. That was because he saw Prince as not being in his league. Personally, I don't think there was a rivalry between Michael and Prince that had festered distaste, but it rankled Michael when anyone suggested to him that Prince was as good as he was. He did not see it. I did point out to Michael that I liked both of them. And I thought Prince had great talent since he played so many different musical instruments. He did not disagree with that, but he just did not think that Prince had risen to his level.

I'm the greatest dancer, the greatest entertainer the world had ever seen, he said, more than once.

He bought me the book and all the tapes of The Secret, urging me to study it hours daily. And I did read the book, listened to Michael’s exhortations, and got the spark that ignited his own enthusiasm. That we had The Secret as something to talk about helped form another of our early bonds.

As our relationship developed, Jackson began regularly inviting me over to watch movies. He was particularly happy with his new Sony projector, which projected the images of the film on the bedroom wall. We’d watch Michael’s favorites such as the James Bond films, animated flicks like Aladdin and Peter Pan, and a documentary named Glory Road, about the first all‐black college basketball team. I marveled that Michael never got