A former tour doctor testifies in the King of Pop's wrongful death trial, says the singer was a drug addict.
- Jul 9, 2013
AceShowbiz - In the ongoing saga that is the Michael Jackson wrongful death trial, a new testimony via a video deposition played for the jurors on Monday, July 8, from a doctor who trekked with the King of Pop's 1993 "Dangerous" tour. Dr. Stuart Finklestein recounted the incidents that led him to believe that Jackson had an addiction to pain medication back then.
His first suspicion came when Jackson called him into his hotel suite and asked him to administer painkillers for a severe headache he was having, which he ended up addressing with an intravenous morphine drip within 24-hours prior to Jackson's Bangkok, Thailand concert. He was supposed to just give him a shot of Demerol on the buttocks but they were already "so scarred up and abscessed that the needle almost bent."
Dr. Finklestein detailed how Jackson was wearing another opiate Duragesic patch and how a longtime make-up artist and hairstylist gave him two ampules of Demerol. He said he told the concert promoters his thoughts on Jackson's addiction but these were just dismissed, even by friend, AEG executive Paul Gongaware.
Gongaware responded to him by saying, "Don't be a Dr. Nick," in reference to the physician who supplied the late Elvis Presley with prescription drugs leading to the King of Rock & Roll's death. Gongaware just warned him "don't get all infatuated where you start administering drugs to a rock star and having him die on you."
