Fan Fare
Entertainment behind the scenes
Update – Reports mount on Michael Jackson’s drug use
Update – And the Fan Fare goes on. (See below)
Another day, another Michael Jackson drug story.
Since the King of Pop died last Thursday of cardiac arrest, many news outlets and reporters have seized on his possible prescription drug use as a reason. It makes for a good story and, after all, the King of Pop did admit to an addiction to painkillers in his past.
Update here: Saturday’s spotlight shone on a group of at least five physicians who prescribed drugs to Jackson, according to an unnamed law enforcment sources cited in a Los Angeles Times story.
Friday’s headlines quote an unnamed Los Angeles law enforcement official as saying police found Diprivan, which also goes by Propofol, in his rented Los Angeles mansion. Earlier this week at various times, we heard about needle marks in his body, a nurse whom he had begged for drugs, a stomach full of pills and a head with only fuzz on top. In the immediate days after his death, the key was demerol use.
Most all sourced to unnamed people familiar with the situation — in some way.
Publishing David Carradine photo. Too much information?
Police in Thailand are working to solve the mystery of actor David Carradine’s death last week in a Bangkok hotel, and they have said not to expect any answers for a month.
His family, however, is ready to settle at least one question: whether the media should publish photos said to be the actor’s body, discovered naked and hanging in his Bangkok hotel room on June 4.
Carradine’s death has sparked intense media speculation about how he died (Click here for that story). Theories have ranged from suicide to murder to accidental autoerotic asphyxiation. All are speculative, none are confirmed.
When a Thai newspaper, Thai Rath, which is known for lively coverage of crime and celebrities, published grainy photos on Saturday that it claimed showed Carradine’s hanging body, an attorney for the actor’s brother, Keith Carradine, said the family will take legal action against people or media outlets that publish the photos.
“The family wants it understood that … any persons, publications or media outlets will be fully prosecuted for invasion of privacy and causing severe emotional distress if the photos are published,” said the statement from attorney Mark Geragos.
Thai police have declined to confirm the authenticity of the photos. (Click here for that story). They did say media were not present at the crime scene and the picture was not leaked by them. Thai Rath did not give a source for the photograph or show the face. We here on the Fan Fare blog have seen it online, and at best it appears highly suspect.
The events bring to mind the leaked police photo of Rihanna after she was allegedly attacked by singer Chris Brown back in February. The photo caused a stir and was not published by some media outlets but was published by others. A key difference was that it was said to be a police photograph, which was later substantiated, and it was clearly Rihanna.
We’re in for much more information on David Carradine. There’s a new book called “David Carradine: The Eye of My Tornado” and it will examine the cause of Carradine’s mysterious death in Bangkok.
I take prescription drugs every day. I take Janumet, Enalapril, and Glimepride. I need them for my diabetes and blood pressure. If I didn’t use these “prescription drugs”, I would be dead. To say “prescription drugs” is a problem is a short-sighted sound bite that does not address the real problem. Michael had a problem. As a dancer, he was constantly in pain, the kind a simple Tylenol probably couldn’t fix. He couldn’t sleep, and perhaps Sominex wasn’t working for him. I don’t know. So he was prescribed something under a doctor’s supervision, and perhaps something went wrong. I don’t know what, and can’t speculate. But to say “prescription drugs” is the prevalent drug of the 21st century and that people need to get off them is plain rubbish. There is no way, at this point, for me to ever get off my meds without serious consequences. And they just ran a piece on people abusing Tylenol with serious consequence. Bottom line, don’t blame the prescription drugs, they are not the real problem. I dare say if they weren’t needed, they wouldn’t be prescribed, especially in my case.