Jackson Biographer Says Singer Was Anorexic, Feared Death

Last December, Rock Daily reported on the wild claims of Michael Jackson biographer Ian Halperin, who told the U.K. press that the King of Pop would be dead in six months if he didn't receive a lung transplant because he was suffering from a disease called Alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency (A1AD.) As MTV News notes, six months and a day after Halperin went public with his speculation, Jackson died after suffering a sudden cardiac arrest in Los Angeles on June 25th. While many of Halperin's other claims have gone unproven — like proclamations that Jackson was 95 percent blind in his left eye and that he suffered from emphysema — the fact that Halperin made such an eerily accurate prediction is both startling and the subject of Halperin's new book Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson.

However one of Halperin's biggest personal claims — that he was the winner of the "Rolling Stone magazine Award for Investigative Journalism" — has turned out to be exaggerated. As RS pointed out last year, the honor was actually a college journalism award the writer split with the rest of his college newspaper.

Following Jackson's death, Halperin — who previously wrote a pair of "Kurt Cobain Murdered?" titles and tabloid biographies of Celine Dion and James Taylor — was forced to make major changes to a scandalous (and unauthorized) book that was originally slated to hit shelves on July 7th. In the new version of Unmasked, Halperin cites "sources" who say that the 5'10'' singer weighed only 100 pounds while he rehearsed for the This Is It! concerts, which fueled concerns that the singer was anorexic. ("I disclosed that he was anorexic before he died, and one of the most serious side effects of anorexia is cardiac arrest," Halperin told MTV News.)

Halperin also writes that Jackson was nervous about the daunting task of performing all 50 sold-out shows at London's O2 Arena, and that the long-out-of-the-spotlight King of Pop collapsed during his second rehearsal. Halperin also alleges that Jackson premonitions he was going to die soon and told his daughter Paris that he would not make it to Father's Day, as well as claims that he has photographic proof that Jackson was gay.

Related Stories:
• Biographer Claims Michael Jackson Seriously Ill, MJ's Reps Deny It
• Michael Jackson Investigation Focuses on Personal Doctor
• Michael Jackson Remembered: Inside Rolling Stone's Special Issue

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Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

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