Freaky Near Death Experiences Michael Jackson Was Lucky To Escape

Michael Jackson’s sudden death in 2009 resulted in an unprecedented level of public mourning never previously seen in living memory. Although his passing was a shock at the time, Michael Jackson had actually had several brushes with death throughout his lifetime, some with unsettling details that I warn may shock you.

In his one and only autobiography, Moonwalk, Jackson describes the creation of his iconic hit song, ‘Billie Jean’, in which its creation almost had him killed in a freak occurrence.

Michael Jackson recounted, ‘one day during a break in a recording session I was riding down the Ventura Freeway with Nelson Hayes, who was working with me at the time. I was writing the song ‘Billie Jean’ at the time and the words were going around in my head, that’s all I was thinking about while driving. Then, we were getting off the freeway when a kid on a motorcycle pulls up to us and said, “Stop your car! Your car, it’s on fire!”’.

Jackson continued “Suddenly we noticed the smoke and pulled over and the whole bottom of the Rolls-Royce was on fire’. Soon after Jackson and his colleague got out the burning vehicle, the whole car was engulfed in flames. ‘That kid probably saved our lives. If the car had exploded, we would have been killed. But I was so absorbed by this tune floating in my head that I didn’t even focus on the awful possibilities until later’.

Another near-death experience came on September 11th, 2001. Yep… you may not have known this, but Michael Jackson could have easily ended up a victim of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York city if he hadn’t been saved by his own mother.

It was a close call for the King of Pop, as according to his brother’s autobiography. On this day, Michael had a meeting scheduled in at the Windows on the World restaurant, at the top floors (106th and 107th) of the North Tower of the World Trade Centre.

However, the night before Jackson had performed to an audience of thousands at Madison Square Garden as part of his televised 30th Anniversary Celebration, in honour of Jackson’s 30th year as a solo artist. Once the performance was over and he was back at the hotel, Michael received a late-night phone call from his mother and the singer then stayed up till the early hours of the morning talking to her. Exhausted from the previous day’s events, last minute Michael Jackson cancelled the early morning meeting to return a two million dollar watch and a diamond necklace for Elizabeth Taylor they had worn for the concert.

Seeing the day’s atrocity unfold on the news and knowing her son had a planned meeting at the top of one of the towers, Katherine Jackson started frantically calling her son’s hotel to make sure he was safe.

Jermaine wrote ‘Thankfully, none of us had had a clue that Michael was due at a meeting that morning at the top of one of the Twin Towers. We only discovered this when Mother phoned his hotel’.

Bewildered Michael picked up his hotel phone, ‘What? You kept me up talking so late that I overslept and missed my appointment, what’s wrong?’. Unknowingly, this call saved Michael Jackson from certain death in the attack that cost the lives of 2,753 people.

Another much reported freak instance that could have proven fatal for the King of Pop, was on January 27th, 1984 while filming a Pepsi commercial. On this day, Michael and his brother were filming a quasi-concert performance inside Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium. With the venue filled with 3000 screaming fans, the Jacksons finally hit the stage.

During filming, Jackson had completed five takes of the same shot, appearing at the top of a short flight of stairs and dancing down as fireworks were let off around him. Suddenly there was a blinding explosion at the centre of the stage, much larger than in previous takes. As Michael descended the staircase, little did he know that a spark had ignited his hair. Still focused on his feet Michael was unaware of what was happening, and it was not until he took his first spin at the bottom of the stairs that he realised he was in fact on fire. Frantically, Jackson cried out ‘Tito! Tito!’ to his startled older brother. A coat was quickly thrown over Michael’s head, and an onslaught of crew members urgently smothered the flames.

‘All his hair was gone and there was smoke coming out of his head’, Jackson’s long time make-up artist, Karen Faye, testified. ‘I never saw anything like that in my life… this was someone I knew, and he was on fire’. Although the fire was put out quickly, pandemonium erupted in the auditorium as screams filled the hall. Crowds of teenage fans shouted ‘Michael Jackson has been shot! Michael Jackson is dead!’.

In shock and screaming in pain, Jackson was swiftly escorted off stage and rushed to hospital. While in Brotman Memorial, Michael Jackson was treated for a palm-sized patch of 2nd and 3rd degree burns on his scalp. A serious injury, whereby recovery was expected to be a long and painful one. Although Jackson was considered lucky, as the incident could have easily caused serious burns to his face and proven fatal if the spark had set his clothes ablaze.

According to his makeup artist, Michael Jackson suffered debilitating migraines in the wake of the accident. Powerful sedatives were also prescribed to the star, in order to calm his nerves and help him sleep. Later that year, Michael Jackson was diagnosed with lupus, a long-term autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system becomes hyperactive and attacks normal, healthy tissue, often triggered by stress or a traumatic event. It has since been proven that the agony Jackson found himself in after the incident, kick-started the prescription painkiller addiction that eventually snow-balled, killing him years later.

However, the most unsettling fact about this supposed freak accident is that Michael Jackson was exactly 25 years 4 months and 29 days old on the day of the Pepsi fire. Fast forward exactly 25 years 4 months and 29 days later, Michael Jackson took his last breath. Meaning that this monumental trauma in Jackson’s life took place exactly, to the day, at the halfway point of the King of Pop’s life. Seems too much of a coincidence to be accidental. But what kind of explanation can you think of?

As it has been well documented, Michael Jackson struggled with addiction for years to come, causing several brushes with death. On two separate occasions in 1993, Adrian McManus, the singer’s personal maid during the 1990s, said she and other staff members ­frequently stumbled across Jackson ‘dead’ on a ­cocktail of prescription drugs. She said, ‘One day I knocked on his door, but got no answer so I went in to clean. He was lying on the bed, motionless, looking very pale’.

‘I called several times, but he didn’t answer. As I got closer his eyes were open and he appeared not to be breathing. My heart sank as I thought he was dead, but then he came to suddenly. He didn’t say a word but burst into tears.’ Adrian said she thought about calling for help but had been warned before by the singer to not involve ‘outsiders’.

She also revealed that another incident occurred just a few weeks later, when Michael’s security guard found him lifeless at the edge of a swimming pool. Adrian said: ‘The guard thought he was dead. He feared the worst, trying to wake him by shaking and ­shouting at him. He couldn’t find a pulse and he didn’t appear to be breathing.’ Terrified his boss was dead, the ­worker radioed another guard, who performed life-saving treatment. Adrian added: ‘Michael made his guards train in CPR, so they knew what to do’.

Michael Jackson became increasingly absorbed by the idea of overdosing and his own death. He would speak to his former wife, Lisa Marie Presley, about the gruesome details of her father’s tragic demise. In 1997, he released a track named ‘Morphine’, which central themes were about the drug usage of Demerol.

Michael Jackson reportedly ‘died’ of overdoses three times in the 18 months before he passed away. It has even been claimed Michael enjoyed the sensation of having his heart re-started. One time it was reported that they had to pump his stomach and another time do CPR.

A source quoted by the National Enquirer stated, ‘once, after doctors finally managed to wake him up, Michael said he had died and gone to heaven, and it felt good. Michael said it was the most exhilarating experience of his life, to have seen how things looked on the other side, then come back to Earth again’.