Michael Jackson dies of cardiac arrest

Michael Jackson's death came as a shock yesterday - but to some, the real surprise was that he made it to 50.

For much of his adult life, he seemed to be disintegrating before our eyes - gaunt, pale, in a wheelchair or bandaged from yet another surgery.

He battled an addiction to painkillers and could barely sit up straight at times during his 2005 child molestation trial.

The London Sun said Jackson's collapse yesterday came after injecting Demerol.

The Jackson family lawyer, Brian Oxman, said he warned the pop star about his misuse of prescription drugs.

"I have warned that one day Michael Jackson would wake up dead, and that I would not be silent if that was the case, because of the misuse of medications. I have made that statement to family members and I told them I would not be still," he said last night outside UCLA Medical Center.

The star suffered cardiac arrest, a condition that can lead to death if not treated within five minutes, according to doctors.

"Cardiac arrest refers broadly to when your heart just no longer pumps blood," said Dr. Jeffrey Moses, director of the center for interventional vascular therapy at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia. In most cases, the heart beats so chaotically it stops functioning, leading to unconsciousness. Sometimes it gets extremely weak and quivers uselessly.

Last month, promoters assured a skeptical press that Jackson was robust after the first dates of his comeback tour were postponed. London newspapers reported he had skin cancer. "There's nothing going on with his health," said Randy Phillips of promoter AEG Live.

The assurances clashed with photos of Jackson - his face covered by a surgical mask - that suggested a mystery malady.

Last July, photographers snapped his children rolling him through a Las Vegas bookstore in a wheelchair, clad in the costume of a convalescent: pajamas and slippers.

It was never completely clear what ailed Jackson, who was badly burned during the filming of a Pepsi commercial in 1984.

Denying reports he bleached his skin, he insisted he had vitiligo, a pigmentation disorder. He admitted to only two plastic surgeries, but experts speculated he had repeatedly gone under the knife and that his nose had been permanently damaged.

He got hooked on prescription pills - including Xanax and painkillers - and his family reportedly flew to his home in Bahrain for an intervention.

He made at least one trip to rehab, and in 2007 admitted in a sworn deposition that four years earlier he was often - but not always - "impaired" by pill popping.

"It comes and goes, not all of the waking hours," he told a lawyer for his former manager.

A long list of health problems often held up Jackson's 2005 trial on child molestation charges - and created a crazy court spectacle. The pop star threw up on the way to court for jury selection, was rushed to the emergency room for back problems and showed up wearing pajamas.