When Fame Turns Fatal: A Troubling Trend in Celebrity Medicine
Z.S. Louis
Contributor - Control Alt History
zslouis@proton.me
Recently, two personal doctors of actor Mathew Perry pleaded guilty in charges related to the Friends stars death(1). Perry, who died of a ketamine overdose in 2023, is just the latest star on a long list of celebrities killed by their trusted personal physicians. Mega stars such as Michael Jackson, Anna Nicole Smith, and Elvis Presely, all fell victim to alleged drug related medical malpractice resulting in death. Which begs the question, are these celebrity doctors actual trained medical experts? Or simply drug mules in white coats?
Dr. Conrad Murray
When Michael Jackson died suddenly in 2009 of a drug overdose attributed to Propofol, the eyes of the world turn to his personal physician, Dr. Conard Murray. Up to that point, little was known about Dr. Murray, but an investigation into Jackson’s death revealed that Murray had prescribed Jackson with a daily drug cocktail featuring near fatal doses of up to eight medications(2). Jackon wrote a musical account of his daily drug routine in his relatively unpopular 1997 song titled Morphine.
While having had an extensive history of medical prowess, Murray was subject to ridicule in the medical community due to some out-of-office concerns. By the time Murray became Jackson’s personal physician, he had fathered seven children with six different women, while simultaneously amassing large amounts of unpaid child support. Murray also carried several underwater mortgages on properties in Las Vegas, California, and Texas. All of which came after he formally declared bankruptcy years prior in 2002. To top it all off, Murray was also mere months away from losing his California medical license due to outstanding civil lawsuits when he signed his 150,000 dollar per month contract with Michael Jackson’s show promoter, AEG Live(3) (4) (5).
So how did someone with such a troubled life and past end up as the personal physician to one of the largest stars in human history? The official story claims that Jackson befriended Murray after he treated his daughter during their time in Las Vegas, but many wonder if Murray agreed to procure powerful anesthetic drugs for Jackson in exchange for his bloated contract.
The strangeness surrounding Murray didn’t stop even after he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in relation to Jackson’s death in 2011. In 2016, Murray released a tell all book titled This is It! The Secret Lives of Dr. Conrad Murray and Michael Jackson. Within the book, Murray makes several stunning accusations. Most notably, that Michael Jackson was chemically castrated by his father at a young age to permanently maintain his youthful singing voice. Murray also claims that Jackson was sexually obsessed with young women such as Emma Watson and his own god-daughter Harriet Lester. If that wasn’t strange enough, Murray also alleges that Jackson would role play scenarios where he was to marry a “chosen wife”, often a child or his god daughter(7).
As of today, Murray still maintains his innocence and claims to have been a scapegoat for a much larger criminal enterprise that distributed Demerol and Propofol in the Las Vegas area(6).
Dr. Khristine Eroshevich
Anna Nicole Smith was a mainstay in the public eye for most of her adult life, whether as a model, Playboy centerfold, or wife to 90-year-old oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall. So, when Smith died at age 39, with a double-digit count of individual prescription drugs in her system, the public began searching for answers. While Smith’s death was ruled an accidental overdose, it was revealed that eight of the eleven drugs found in her system were prescribed by Dr. Khristine Eroshevich. However, none of the lethal cocktail featuring opiates, anxiety medications, muscle relaxants, and other drugs, was actually prescribed to Anna Nicole Smith(8).
Smith’s husband and attorney, Howard K Stern, was featured as the patient on several of the prescriptions, along with a mystery name of Alex Katz. An investigation into Katz revealed that not only was Eroshevich the personal physician of Howard K Stern, but that she was knowingly prescribing medications under a false name for Smith’s recreational use. Smith was also found to have received several buttocks injections of B12, cyanocobalamin, and human growth hormone, which have allegedly been tied to Eroshevich as well(9).
While Smith was always seen as a unique and polarizing figure of the Hollywood elite, many fans have revisited clips from her TV show The Anna Nicole Show and noticed that her prescription drug abuse is far more noticeable in hindsight. Many fans have recently discussed this clip of Smith being coach on the Israel v. Palestine conflict as an example of clear drug abuse.
Both Stern and Dr. Eroshevich were convinced of conspiracy to obtain prescriptions under a false name in 2010, but avoided any charges related to the actual death. Eroshevich was re-trialed in 2015 but again was able to avoid jail time for the death of Anna Nicole Smith, receiving no additional charges or sentences(10).
George “Dr. Nick” Nichopoulos
There may have never been a more culturally significant death than Elvis Presley’s passing in 1977. While initial reports of the King’s death were attributed to a heart attack, these claims were made before a formal autopsy could even be conducted(11). Ultimately, Elvis’ autopsy revealed a dark secret that the world’s most famous man had been keeping for almost a decade, a prescription drug abuse habit that reached a nearly unfathomable rate.
At the time of his death, Elvis has active prescriptions for a slew of amphetamines, barbiturates, narcotic tranquilizers, laxatives, hormones, and sleeping pills. His long-time personal physician, Dr. George Nichopolous, was placed under investigation in 1980 as more information was revealed about the illegal prescription of these medications to Presley. From January 1977 through August 1977, Dr. Nick had prescribed over 10,000 dosages of various drugs to Elvis, resulting in severe stress of the singer’s organs and nervous system. It was simultaneously revealed that Dr. Nick had conducted similar prescription practices with 13 other patients, including musical icon Jerry Lee Lewis(12).
Nichopoulos defended this accusation by claiming Elvis had developed a dependency on these drugs prior to their meeting in 1967, which was corroborated by alleged medical case fixer Michael Baden, who claimed the size of Elvis’s heart could only reach that level of enlargement after a period of abuse(13). Dr. Nick also alleged that he prescribed over 1,000 placebos to Presley in an attempt to break his tolerance for medications, but this was an unsuccessful endeavor (12). A jury ultimately acquitted Nichopoulos of the alleged nefarious actions in the death of Elvis and concluded he acted in his patient’s best interest. 13 years later in 1993, Nichopoulos had his medical license permanently revoked by the state of Tennessee, as further investigations revealed a pattern of overprescription, to which Nichopoulos replied, “I cared too much.”(14).
For additional insight into some strange activities surrounding the death of Elvis, please refer to this video on the Control Alt History YouTube channel.