The pop star is pronounced dead by doctors after arriving at a hospital in a deep coma, city and law enforcement sources tell The Times.A person with knowledge of the situation said that Michael Jackson has died after being rushed to a Los Angeles Hospital on Thursday, The A.P. reports.
He was 50.
L.A. Times Reports Jackson Is Dead | 6:24 p.m. The newspaper cited “city and law enforcement sources.” The networks and CNN are also broadcasting the news, citing the Times story.
Reports: Jackson in a Coma | 6:15 p.m. Several news organizations including the Los Angeles Times reported that Mr. Jackson “is in a coma.” The newspaper attributed the news to one law enforcement source. CNN is also citing “multiple sources” as saying that Mr. Jackson is in a coma.
Update | 6:11 p.m. LOS ANGELES – An unconscious Michael Jackson was rushed to UCLA Medical Center on Thursday afternoon by paramedics who performed C.P.R., according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Early reports indicated cardiac arrest, but a hospital spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment. Mr. Jackson, 50, has been renting a mansion in the Bel Air neighborhood, a short distance from the hospital, and rehearsing for a series of 50 sold-out shows in London.
Joe Jackson told to E! News, an entertainment Web site and cable channel, that the singer’s family was scrambling to determine his condition. “I am in Las Vegas, but yes, people in Los Angeles called me and are with Michael and tell me he was taken to the hospital,” Mr. Jackson told E! News. “His mother is on her way to the hospital now to check in on him.”
Mr. Jackson is scheduled to perform in a series of concerts in at the O2 arena London, beginning next month and continuing into 2010. The shows have been widely seen in the music industry as an important possible comeback for him, with the potential to earn him up to $50 million, according to some reports. But there has also been worry and speculation that Mr. Jackson, who is 50, was not physically ready for such an arduous run of concerts, and Mr. Jackson’s postponement of the first of those shows from July 8 to July 12 fueled new rounds of gossip about his health.
A member of the pop group The Jackson 5 as a child, Mr. Jackson was a pint-size musical dynamo. He under the aegis of Joe Jackson, spent years in talent shows and performing in seedy Midwestern clubs his dictatorial and ambitious father. Joe Jackson and Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records, were the singer’s twin mentors during his early career.
Mr. Jackson eventually broke with his father and the Jackson 5, a move toward creative and financial independence marked by his collaborations with Quincy Jones on a trio of albums. The most memorable of those is 1982’s “Thriller,” which eventually racked up sales of 51 million copies globally, according to the Guinness World Records, making it the best-selling album in history.
A spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department told CNN that rescuers were called to Mr. Jackson’s home at 12:21 p.m. Pacific. “When paramedics went on the scene, they treated the patient, then they immediately transported the patient to UCLA,” the spokesman told CNN. Mr. Jackson’s home is located only a few minutes from the hospital center.
Cable news channels almost immediately started showing paparazzi shots from TMZ, X17Online.com and Hollywood.TV of Mr. Jackson’s entourage arriving at the hospital. By mid-afternoon, television news helicopters were hovering above the medical center. SOURCE:NYTIMES, LATIMES, CNN.COM
