death (472 posts)

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Whoever said "everything leaves a paper trail" was damn right.

Dr. Conrad Murray has admitted to giving Michael Jackson the surgical anesthetic propofol to help him sleep, and police say they know where he got it.

According to additional search warrant documents released Friday, investigators found receipts in Murray's Nevada office showing that the cardiologist purchased five bottles the drug from a Las Vegas pharmacy on May 12 and had it mailed to the L.A. mansion Jackson was living in when he died a month later.

All of which should come as no shock to anyone, according to Murray's attorney.

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One person is dead and several more suffered minor injuries after Miley Cyrus' tour bus crashed and flipped onto its side in Virginia this morning.

Cyrus herself was not on board the bus at the time—she was instead recovering from channeling Pretty Woman-era Julia Roberts. But, according to media reports, the vehicle involved was the Disney star's usual mode of transportation between shows.

The driver of the bus, whose identity has not been released, is the sole known casualty.

The crash took place around 8:15 a.m. in the town of Dinwiddie, roughly 40 miles south of Richmond. While the cause of the fatal accident is not yet known, Virginia State Police confirm that the roads were wet at the time.

The bus was likely en route to  Greensboro, N.C., where Cyrus' next concert is scheduled to take place Sunday night.

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This news is tragic. Cheer yourself up by looking at some pretty, pretty vampires.

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A.J. Jewell's death may have been an accident, but it was a preventable one.

The death of the former fiancé of Real Housewives of Atlanta's Kandi Burruss has been declared a homicide by Georgia's Fulton County medical examiner's office, which confirmed earlier speculation that the street fight Jewell got into on the night of his death was exacerbated by his sickle-cell anemia.

"Although Mr. Jewell died of complications of his underlying natural disease conditions, the complications would not have occurred if he had not experienced the extreme exertion that was part of the physical altercation," stated the report, obtained by the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

"Due to the active involvement of another person, the manner of death is classified as a homicide."

But if you think the report brought any sense of closure to Jewell's still-grieving family, well, think again.

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AP Photo/Reed Saxon

The man whose son derailed Michael Jackson's career with blockbuster accusations of molestation is dead of an apparent suicide.

Evan Chandler, 65, was found in his luxury New Jersey apartment on Nov. 5 with a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head and the weapon still in his hand, police confirm.

The former Beverly Hills dentist and aspiring screenwriter did not leave behind a suicide note. However, detectives found prescription medication indicating he was suffering from a serious medical condition. Police did not disclose the nature of Chandler's illness.

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Ken Ober, who hosted MTV's pop-culture-centric game show, Remote Control, for five seasons beginning in 1987, was found dead in his home on Sunday, the network reports. The 52-year-old's cause of death has yet to be determined.

Ober began his career on Star Search but spent recent years behind the scenes, working in production on comedies like The New Adventures of Old Christine and Mind of Mencia.

"Kenny Ober was and always will be the quickest wit in the room," fellow funnyman Denis Leary tells MTV News. "He was fall-down funny from the moment he was born—a smart, fast and hilarious human being who made many of us, including myself, laugh until we cried. As the star and host of Remote Control, he was a welcoming ringmaster who helped to kickstart the careers of numerous talents, including Adam Sandler, Colin Quinn and myself. He will be remembered always by each of his friends not only for his massive talent but for his true, deep and enduring friendship."

"Ken Ober was one of the sharpest, quickest, sweetest guys I ever met," Sandler told the network. "He was always a great friend and I will miss him very much."

Lee Kernis, the star's manager, said that Ober complained to a friend of a headache and flu-like symptoms on Saturday.

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E! Online eulogizes other late celebs right here.

Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images; AP Photo/Houston Chronicle

While many of her family members have danced around the accusation, Janet Jackson isn't hiding her thoughts on who's to blame for her brother's death.

Dr. Conrad Murray is at fault for Michael Jackson's premature passing, she says.

"He was the one that was administering," she tells ABC's Robin Roberts in an exclusive interview airing Wednesday night. "I think he is responsible."

The doc is still under investigation for the death, and has admitted to giving the icon anesthetic propofol.

Placing blame isn't the only thing Miss Jackson is spilling in the rare sit-down.

"I couldn't believe it," she says, recalling June 25 and the moment she found out her brother was deceased.

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Edward Woodward, the British star of stage and screen arguably best known for kicking bad-guy butt on CBS' The Equalizer, has died.

His agent said Woodward have been hospitalized in the U.K. for an unspecified illness and died Monday.

With nearly 100 credits on an IMDb résumé dating back to the 1950s, Woodward worked with the legendary likes of Laurence Olivier and Alfred Hitchcock, could do Shakespearean and soap opera, had roles that were hailed by critics (Breaker Morant) as well as a cult classic (the original The Wicker Man), and pocketed awards for his efforts, including an Emmy (for the documentary Remembering World War II) and a Golden Globe (for The Equalizer).

He was nominated for an Emmy during each year of the CBS series' 1985-89 run, even though his duties were cut during the third season after he suffered a heart attack. His most recent film work was in the 2007 comedy Hot Fuzz and the yet to be released Congregation of Ghosts.

Woodward was 79.

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It cost big bucks to lay Michael Jackson to rest.

Court documents obtained by E! News show that funeral expenses amounted to nearly $1.1 million from start to finish, security to sarcophagus.

Jackson's estate petitioned the court to approve the immediate release of the funds from the King of Pop's fortune to pay for the proceedings.

Per the paperwork, $855,730 was owed to Forest Lawn Memorial Park & Mortuary, where Jackson was interred in September at a service attended by his whole family, close friends like Quincy Jones and Elizabeth Taylor, many celebrities and a few unwelcome news helicopters.

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Michael Jackson's not the only fallen star with a posthumous project out this week. (Just the only one competing against unrealistically high expectations.)

Just a few months after Modest Mouse released Heath Ledger's music video directorial debut, his directorial finale made its way online this week, courtesy of London rapper and Ledger childhood friend No Fixed Abode.

According to the rapper, the Oscar winner filmed the three-and-a-half minute opus in his garage in Sydney in the months before his death in January 2008. The video, which features some slightly Joker-esque makeup, was also included in a tribute to Ledger shown during the Rome Film Festival earlier this month.

"The idea was to keep it very artistic which is what we did," the rapper, who also goes by N'fa, said. "Heath directed really well…and I know that Heath was happy with the work.

"Everyday I count my blessings that I got to have him direct this piece of art. It was a song I was proud to have written but I never expected to have such an immense video made for it. I'd known Heath since we were very young and he was always a creative kind of guy and, in many ways, ahead of the curve. When he had the idea about doing this video I had no question about it.

"Thank you very much Heath for all your help, I wish you were here."

Meanwhile, Ledger's final film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, will open in limited release on Dec. 25.

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There's the family we were born with and the family we find along the way. Bruce Springsteen has both.

And tonight, his show with the E Street Band in Kansas City, Mo., was "unavoidably cancelled" following a death in Springsteen's "immediate family," according to a statement on the rocker's website.

No further details were available, but local police told the K.C. Star that they are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death this afternoon of a member of Springsteen's road crew.

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Celebrity deaths can be tragic.

Or they can be tragically ridiculous.

Thanks to the Interwebs, fake celebrity deaths have been running rampant. Kanye West supposedly lost his life in a car crash this week, while Zach Braff recently had to create a video to prove he was still kicking despite tales of a fatal pill-popping episode.

And by now we know that any star rumored to have fallen off a cliff in New Zealand is more likely to have slipped into an Internet hoax. The Kauri Cliffs have supposedly taken Natalie Portman, Jeff Goldblum, Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks from us.

Some have died at the hands of Twitter and Wikipedia, while others have met dramatic driving demises. Needless to say, not all false death alarms were created equal. Some are definitely more believable than others.

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Get the scoop on all the celebs who survived their own supposed deaths in our Alive & Kicking gallery!

Count your legends while they last.

Iconic funnyman Soupy Sales (totally not his real name), perhaps best known for the thousands of pies he took to the face during his 30-plus years on TV and radio, died Thursday at a hospice in the Bronx. He was 83 and had been in bad health for some time, according to longtime friend and former manager Dave Usher.

The rubberfaced slapstick specialist, whom Howard Stern has namechecked as one of his comedic heroes, started hosting the kids show Lunch With Soupy Sales in the 1959, a combination of puppetry, skits and physical comedy that usually resulted in Sales being hit with a pie in the face.

Just as Sesame Street transcends age groups, Sales made his kids show adult friendly by featuring celebs like Tony Curtis and Shirley MacLaine and any other good-natured star willing to take a pie to the punim.

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