Michael Jackson is the biggest pop star who ever lived. Of course, it’s impossible to bring up the man’s name without thinking of a number of events in his life that were not as positive as his talent.
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But for the purposes of this inquiry, we’re going to focus on the events associated with the artist’s death, his passing at 50 years old.
The Day He Died
Jackson died on June 25, 2009. His passing was news around the globe and it led to a major lawsuit against his doctor as well as increased record sales for a time.
Jackson, of course, is likely the most successful recording artist of all time, from his moonwalk to his record sales to his dance moves. No other person was as influential during his four-decade career, which began as a child singing star with The Jackson 5.
He was in The Jackson 5 with his brothers Tito, Jermaine, Jackie and Marlon. He left the group and ventured onto a solo career in 1971 with Motown Records. His 1979 album, Off the Wall, was a smash and portended other records like Thriller in 1982, Bad in 1987, and Dangerous in 1991.
Today, Thriller remains the best-selling album of all time and the music video for the song, which was released some 40 years ago, boasts nearly 1 billion views. Not to mention, Bad was the first album to produce five Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 singles.
Jackson, who sold more than 400 million albums and garnered 15 Grammy Awards during his life, died as he was preparing for his sold-out This Is It comeback tour, which was slated to kick off in just three weeks in London. According to reports, he died of an overdose of the medication propofol, which was given to him by his personal doctor, Conrad Murray. In 2011, Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for his role in Jackson’s death, and sentenced to four years in prison.
Officially, Jackson died of cardiac arrest, which was caused by a drug overdose from the propofol, though he had other medications in his system at the time. Jackson had long been given the drugs by Murray to help him sleep. When the paramedics arrived at 12:25 p.m., they administered CPR. As Jackson was brought to the hospital, they continued to try and revive him, but they ultimately were unable to. He was pronounced dead two hours after the paramedics had arrived.
The Aftermath
After news of his death swept the world, various websites like Google and Wikipedia slowed down and even crashed given the user interest. A reported 11-20% increase in overall global web traffic occurred. Music channels like MTV and BET aired his videos non stop.
The memorial for the artist took place on July 7 at Staples Center (now Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles. Some 1.6 million people applied for tickets. The online stream of the service was watched by more than 2.5 billion people. Smokey Robinson spoke, among others. Mariah Carey, Jennifer Hudson and more performed. Said Reverend Al Sharpton, speaking to Jackson’s kids, “Wasn’t nothing strange about your daddy. It was strange what your daddy had to deal with. But he dealt with it anyway.”
After his death, sales of his music skyrocketed and Sony Music signed a $250 million deal with the artist’s estate to continue to distribute his music. And in 2014, Jackson became the first to have a top 10 single on the Billboard Hot 100 over five decades
Jackson’s estate released his first posthumous song, “This Is It,” which written with Paul Anka in the ’80s, in 2009. His estate also released an excellent documentary of the same name about Jackson’s comeback tour, which, of course, never took place.
And more recently, there is a new biopic about Jackson coming called, Michael, in production. It will star Jaafar Jackson, the son of Michael’s brother, Jermaine. The movie, reported Deadline, “will not shy away from the controversies of Jackson’s life.”
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