Shadowing Practice: Why Michael Jackson’s Death was 25 Years in the Making - Learn English Speaking with Video
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I don't want my brother's death to be a mystery to us or the public.
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We want the world to know what really happened to him.
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It's June 25th, 2009, 2.26pm Pacific Time.
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The alarm sound comes on over the system and says 50 year old male cardiac arrest, 100 North Carolwood.
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He's pumping his chest but he's not responding to anything, sir.
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Did anybody witness what happened?
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No, just the doctor, sir.
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We're on our way.
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In minutes of Michael Jackson's death being reported, the internet began to break.
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Michael Jackson, the pop star, the king of pop, the king of pop, pop music and dance innovator.
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He has been rushed to a Los Angeles hospital.
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We've also been told that Michael Jackson was brought here in full cardiac arrest, that he wasn't breathing or conscious when they picked him up in the ambulance.
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The LA Times was the first major news organization to confirm he was gone.
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That article recorded 2.3 million page views in a single hour.
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And it kept going.
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TMZ crashed, AOL crashed, ABC, CBS, and CNN money went dark.
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Yahoo's story, Michael Jackson Rushed to Hospital, got 800,000 clicks in 10 minutes.
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So many people searched Michael Jackson on Google simultaneously that they thought they were under cyber attack.
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Wikipedia crashed at 3.15 p.m.
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Users were in editing war over whether or not he was dead before the news was officially confirmed.
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By then, nearly a million people visited his Wikipedia article in a single hour.
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AOL called it, quote, a seminal moment in internet history.
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The whole world knew Michael Jackson had died.
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But do we actually know why?
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Everyone thinks they know what happened.
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A propofol dose gone wrong.
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But that's not the whole story.
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Michael Jackson's death wasn't caused by a single night in 2009.
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It was the final domino in a 25 year chain that began with Pepsi and ended with propofol.
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This is the 15 seconds that killed Michael Jackson.
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There are more than 20 documentaries about Michael Jackson, and that's just counting the ones formerly tagged on Wikipedia.
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The real number is uncountable.
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This year, Michael became the highest grossing musical biopic of all time.
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Just the movie trailer was viewed 30 million times in six hours and 116 million times in 24 hours.
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That's more than any trailer for any musical biopic or concert film in history.
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And weeks after the movie was released, yet another documentary on the 2005 trial titled The Verdict dropped on Netflix.
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No other entertainer commands this much screen time or cultural attention 17 years after his death. So
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when this larger than life figure in the midst of a
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massive comeback was struck down at just 50 years old from an anesthetic in his own bedroom, something didn't add up.
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The night of June 25th, 2009 was just the final domino.
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But where did the chain reaction start?
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We went looking for that domino.
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Here's what those 20 plus documentaries leave out.
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It's November 30th, 1982.
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Radio stations across America start playing a new album.
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Within weeks, it's everywhere.
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In cars, in living rooms, in every record store window in the country.
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Thriller.
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It's Michael's much anticipated album after the extraordinary success of Off the Wall.
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As we well know, it went on to become the highest selling album in the world
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and still is with over 70 million copies.
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But in late 1982, none of that was written yet.
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What was already clear to anyone paying attention was that something had shifted.
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Michael Jackson wasn't just popular.
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He was becoming something the music industry didn't quite have a word for yet.
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I made a deal with myself if I win one more award, which is this award, which is seven, which is a record, I would take off my glasses.
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Then this happened.
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Michael performed Billie Jean in front of a live audience and debuted his famous moonwalk.
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When it aired on NBC two months later, 47 million people watched it.
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The following morning, the show's director was at the White House filming an interview.
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Every single person he passed from the elevator to the East Wing was talking about Michael.
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His performance was even nominated for an Emmy.
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It was that groundbreaking.
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Thriller already catapulted Michael into mega stardom, but the Motown performance sent his fame into the stratosphere.
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The next day after the show, when Fred Astaire called my house, he said, I saw the show last night, I taped it, I watched it twice this morning, and he said, you were incredible, you're a hell of a mover.
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And that was my reward because I think he's brilliant.
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By the time the death settled, Michael Jackson was the most famous entertainer on the planet.
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And this unprecedented fame is exactly what made this next decision possible.
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Michael wanted to do a solo tour for the Thriller album, his first one ever without his brothers.
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But his family had other plans in mind.
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For his father, Joe Jackson, this was a chance to capitalize on the success of Thriller and show the world that the Jackson Five were back,
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or rather that they had never left.
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It was to be called the Victory Tour.
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Michael didn't want to do the Victory Tour, but according to his biographer, J.
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Randy Teraborelli, who spent 30 years documenting his life, it wasn't his father who changed his mind.
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It was his mother, Catherine.
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She appealed to him directly.
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The other brothers needed the money and Michael, by all accounts, couldn't say no to his mother.
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So the victory tour was announced.
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Don King, the famous American boxing promoter, was brought in as their tour promoter.
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To fund a tour of this scale, the Jacksons needed a corporate sponsor and they had one.
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Apples and cinnamon.
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Apples and cinnamon.
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Quaker Oats came to the table with a serious offer.
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The Jacksons had pretty much all but finalized the deal.
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Then Don King showed up with a contract he'd already signed.
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King had been in talks with Pepsi before the Jacksons officially hired him.
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And before agreeing to any sponsorship deal, King signed with Pepsi on their behalf and presented it to the Jacksons as a done deal.
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The Pepsi deal was for a whopping $5 million, which at the time was the largest endorsement deal ever signed.
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But the Quaker Oats deal, according to Michael's own lawyer, John Branca, was 40% more money,
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40% more for a brand that Jacksons had actually chosen.
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But it didn't matter.
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King structured the Pepsi deal with an exclusivity clause, which meant the moment it was signed,
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no competing sponsor could come in regardless of what they offered.
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The Jacksons didn't choose that clause or this deal.
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Michael didn't even drink Pepsi, but they were now bound by it.
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So they took the deal and broke off talks with Quaker.
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Part of the arrangement was two TV commercials, but Michael had one condition.
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His face couldn't appear on screen for more than five seconds to avoid overexposing his image.
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Watch the first commercial back.
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You can count the seconds.
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The first commercial was straightforward.
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The Jacksons come across a group of young kids who are their super fans.
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And the Michael of the group was none other than a young Alfonso Ribeiro, better known to most of you as Carlton Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
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That was the first commercial done and dusted.
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The second one is where the story actually begins and the day that changed Michael Jackson forever.
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3,000 screaming fans are packed into the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles for what was supposed to be a routine shoot.
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This commercial featured a live performance of the Pepsi jingle to a remixed version of Billie Jean.
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Michael was to descend a lit staircase as pyrotechnics fired behind him,
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timed the music, and joined his brothers on stage to sing the jingle.
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They had already done five or six takes with absolutely no issues.
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The crowd was electric, everything was going smoothly.
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Those who were there that day said the atmosphere was fantastic, and Michael was in a particularly good mood.
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So what changed?
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The director, Bob Giraldi, who also famously directed Beat It, asked Michael for one more take.
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But this time he wanted something slightly different.
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He told Michael, quote, you're going down too early.
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We want to see you up there on the stairs.
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When the lights come on, we want to reveal that you're there.
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And all the previous takes, you'll notice Michael does a quick signature pose at the top before bounding down the stairs to join his brothers.
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On this last take, Michael holds his pose at the top for a few seconds before going down the stairs, exactly as the director asked,
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which meant he was still standing at the top of the stairs when the pyrotechnics fired.
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Michael wrote about what happened next in his autobiography, Moonwalk.
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The reason for the fire was stupidity, pure and simple, Only later did I find out that these bombs were only two feet away from either side of my head,
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which was a total disregard of the safety regulations.
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The sparks set my hair on fire.
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I was dancing down this ramp and turning around spinning, not knowing I was on fire.
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Suddenly, I felt my hands reflexively going to my head in an attempt to smother the flames.
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I fell down and just tried to shake the flames out." End quote.
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Michael didn't realize he was on fire for several seconds.
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He started doing his famous spins in a desperate attempt to put the fire out.
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In the audience, the chaos was immediate.
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Michael apparently called out for his brother Tito to help him, but his brothers who were watching from the stage process what they were seeing.
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Their first thought was someone in the theater had shot Michael.
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An assassination attempt.
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The Pepsi executives retreated to a corner.
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They were in Michael's own words, quote, so scared they couldn't even bring themselves to check on me, end quote.
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Nobody in that building understood they were actually watching the first domino fall in a chain
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that wouldn't finish for another 25 years.
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Michael was rushed to Brotman Medical center for second and third degree burns to his scalp.
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And everything that followed, the surgeries, the pain management, the medications, would not be over in weeks or months or even years.
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What the fire left behind was a palm-sized area of permanently destroyed hair follicles on his scalp.
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Hair follicles don't regenerate.
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Once they're gone, they're gone.
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Michael Jackson was only 25 years old, at the peak of his career,
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and one of the most photographed people on earth.
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The only surgical solution was to try to replace the scar tissue with healthy, hair-bearing scalp from the surrounding area.
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But to do that, you first had to create enough excess scalp to work with.
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And this is where some would argue things took a turn.
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To rebuild Jackson's scalp, surgeons used a technique called tissue expansion.
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It uses a silicone balloon placed in a pocket under the
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healthy scalp near the injury with a tiny valve left just beneath the skin.
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Every week or so for two to three months, the surgeon will inject a small amount of saline directly into that valve.
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In response, the balloon grows and the scalp skin stretches to make room.
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Under that time under tension, the skin cells begin dividing and creating new collagen from scratch.
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So Michael's body was building a new scalp cell by cell.
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And unlike a skin graft, the expanded scalp continues to grow real hair.
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In theory, it was a brilliant solution.
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But for Michael Jackson, it kept failing.
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His own dermatologist, Dr. Arnold Klein, described exactly why in a 2009 interview on CNN's Larry King Live.
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He used a great deal of what are called tissue expanders in his scalp, which are balloons that go up, blow up the scalp, and then what they do is they try to cut out the scar.
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But because he had lupus, what happened is every time they would do it, the bald spot would keep enlarging.
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So, I mean, he went through a lot of painful procedures with these tissue expanders until I put a stop to it.
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I said, no more tissue expanders, because he had to wear a hat all the time, and it was really painful for him.
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So what would his, without the hat, what would he look like?
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He would have a big raised ball on the top of his head because of this device.
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We expand the tissue which you cut out.
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Michael Jackson was walking around with a growing mass under his scalp, managing it under hats and careful styling,
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performing in front of sold out arenas,
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then returning to the surgeon's office every week or two for another needle in the valve for another increment of pressure.
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But with each procedure meant another round of pain.
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Less than six months after the incident, Michael was back on stage for the sold-out victory tour in July 1984.
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Despite the serious nature of the incident, the press reported it as a freak accident and was soon forgotten.
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But it wasn't that simple.
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Michael was only meant to have one tissue expansion procedure, but because of his lupus, he underwent several.
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According to those close to him, it caused him to be in excruciating pain.
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And managing that escalating cycle of pain meant medication, strong medication, specifically a drug called Demerol.
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Here's what people don't explain about Demerol
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and why it's used in this case is more disturbing the closer you look at it.
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Demerol is not a long-term pain management drug.
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The clinical guidance is crystal clear.
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It's only meant for short-term acute pain with treatment lasting no more than 48 hours.
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Remember that for later.
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And there's a good reason for this.
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When the body metabolizes Demerol, a bioproduct called normoparidine is produced.
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This molecule builds up in the nervous system over time and becomes neurotoxic and is capable of triggering tremors and seizures.
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Now get this,
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burn patients are specifically named in the clinical literature as a group requiring extra caution with this drug
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because they are already at increased risk for this toxicity.
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In other words, Demerol, the drug prescribed to manage his burn pain was,
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in his specific situation, one of the most dangerous choices available.
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If you've never heard of Demerol, there's a reason.
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Its use in the US dropped by 97% between 2001 and 2021 because doctors stopped prescribing it due to its toxicity.
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And eventually Pfizer discontinued it.
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Nine years after the fire in 1993, Michael Jackson was still in pain and still undergoing scalp procedures.
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By November of that year, he announced the cancellation of the second leg of his dangerous world tour.
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When he did, he issued a public statement.
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In the statement, he said the following.
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You're undergoing treatment for a dependency on pain medication.
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This medication was initially prescribed to see the excruciating pain that I was suffering after recent reconstructive surgery on my scalp.
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Michael drew the line himself from the fire to the dependency in his own words.
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But the dead world didn't stop in 1993.
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According to medical records introduced at the wrongful death trial, Jackson visited his dermatologist, Dr. Arnold Klein,
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24 times in the final three months of his life,
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receiving a total of 6,500 milligrams of Demerol during those visits.
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To put that in context, the recommended dose is 50 to 100 milligrams every few hours.
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So Michael was receiving nearly three times that per visit.
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And remember, Demerol is not supposed to be used for more than 48 hours,
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but Michael had been using it for 25 years.
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Now here's the question this raises.
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If he was allegedly dependent on Demerol, how did he die from propofol?
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When you're chronically taking an opioid, you'll get withdrawal symptoms and it can happen fast.
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I'm talking within six to 12 hours of your last dose.
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And one of the major withdrawal symptoms of Demerol is insomnia.
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Expert witness Dr. Robert Waldman testified that Jackson was attempting to treat his insomnia with propofol.
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That is the link between Pepsi and propofol.
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The drug prescribed for his burn became the reason he was using an operating room anesthetic in his bedroom.
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Until June 2009, most people outside medicine had never even heard of propofol.
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There's a reason for that.
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It's not supposed to leave the operating room.
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Michael had a private name for it.
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He called it his milk because of how it looked.
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If you've ever had general anesthesia, there is a high chance propofol was part of your anesthesia cocktail to put you under.
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Its specific job is to rapidly and reliably make you unconscious within seconds of injection.
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It works remarkably well in the right setting.
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When paramedics rushed into Michael's bedroom, it was in various states of disarray, but that wasn't what drew their attention.
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It was all the pill bottles and IV bags and stands.
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He practically had a makeshift hospital in his room.
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From his autopsy report, Michael had the following medications in his system at the time of his death.
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Lorazepam, midazolam, diazepam, three benzodiazepines, which is a class of drugs used for anxiety,
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insomnia, and seizures, lidocaine, a local anesthetic, and then the one that changed everything, propofol.
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We know Michael was attempting to use propofol to help him sleep, but that's not what it does because sleep isn't passive.
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Every night, your brain runs something called the glymphatic system, discovered only in 2012 by neuroscientist Mike Nedergaard at the University of Rochester.
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It uses cerebral spinal fluid to flush out toxic byproducts that build up in the brain during the day.
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This system is 10 times more active during deep sleep than when you're awake.
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Nadergaard described it perfectly.
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Quote, you can think of it like having a house party.
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You can either entertain the guests or clean up the house, but you can't really do both at the same time.
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One study found it can take up to four days of proper rest to recover from a single hour of lost sleep.
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And Michael's sleep was already severely disrupted from the Demerol.
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Opioids are documented to suppress REM and slow-wave sleep, which are the exact stages the glymphatic system needs to do its work.
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Then the drug changed from something that disrupted sleep to replacing it entirely with something that wasn't sleep at all.
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An anesthesiologist who testified at the wrongful death trial stated directly,
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proper REM or non-REM sleep is not possible under propofol sedation.
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What propofol does is produce a pharmacologically induced loss of consciousness.
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When Michael woke up each morning, he felt rested, but that was just a dopamine release upon waking
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that had nothing to do with whether his body had actually recovered.
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He felt fine, but he was not fine.
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And he had no way to know the difference.
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This Is It is three weeks away.
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50 shows.
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It's the most anticipated comeback in pop history.
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And the man at the center of it hasn't had a real night's sleep in years.
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This is it.
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I I mean, this is really it.
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This is the final curtain call.
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And the night of June 24, 2009, was no different.
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His personal doctor, Conrad Murray, tries Valium first.
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Jackson is still awake.
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He tries lorazepam, still awake.
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He tries midazolam.
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Hours pass, still awake.
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According to trial testimony, Jackson told Murray he needed to sleep, that he couldn't function, that he might have to cancel the concerts,
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that he just needed it to stop.
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Murray held out through the night.
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Then at approximately 10.40 in the morning, after hours of failed alternatives, he gave in and administered the propofol.
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Jackson lost consciousness almost immediately.
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And then Conrad Murray left the room.
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Murray was a cardiologist, not an anesthesiologist.
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Propofol requires constant monitoring of breathing and heart function.
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And for that reason must only be administered in a hospital or clinical setting with a trained specialist present throughout.
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Dr. Linda Aglio, associate professor of anesthesiology at Harvard Medical School, was asked about propofol's requirements after Jackson's death.
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She was direct, I won't leave a patient unattended for a second.
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I was surprised that any doctor taking care of him would leave him alone.
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End quote.
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So not only did Murray administer a medication he was not authorized to use in an unauthorized setting,
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he left Michael alone afterwards.
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When Murray returned to the room, Michael Jackson had stopped breathing.
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The worst part about this entire incident is that expert testimony established it was entirely preventable.
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If Murray had simply stayed, noticed Jackson slowed breathing, and used a basic bag mask to ventilate his lungs,
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Michael Jackson would likely have survived that night.
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But Murray didn't have one.
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He wasn't there.
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And Michael didn't survive.
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Before Michael hired Murray, he asked three other doctors for propofol.
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All three refused on safety grounds.
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It was Conrad Murray's gross negligence.
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It was Conrad Murray's unskilled hands
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and his desire to obtain this lucrative contract of $150,000 a month that led Dr. Murray not only to abandon his patient,
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but to abandon all principles of medical care.
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So I think the problem was that relying on medications to actually have a normal life, then what is the new normal, right?
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Because I know I can take something to get out of bed every day and be able to have a normal life.
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Then I want a medication because I have trouble sleeping.
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and maybe the trouble sleeping is because over activation during the day
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but you have to be careful when you're combining this together
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because otherwise you become dependent on everything
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and you're not able to have a normal life unless you get a pharmacological help
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and that's really dangerous
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and i think that's what happened you were taking something to have regular day
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that was affecting the way you were sleeping at night
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because you know maybe it was over activating
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and then you have to take something else to fall asleep right
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and then you couldn't get up of bed
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because you know proper will make you you know i mean i've taken proper for
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when you know you have a procedure in the hospital a minor they give you proper fall
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but you know you actually it's like you're taking a nap you go to sleep
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and then you wake up an hour later that's it
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but if you are taking it to basically sleep through the night you can imagine how much you are taking
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so i think it was a problem with it was not just i don't know
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if it was synergy between everything because I'm not, I don't have the data and I can't say that, but it was the dependency.
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It's been 17 years since Michael Jackson died and yet here we are still talking about it.
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Why?
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Because when someone that extraordinary dies in such an ordinary way, we can't accept it.
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The manner of death must match the magnitude of the person.
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So we reach for something larger like conspiracies, cover-ups, anything that feels proportionate to the loss.
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But the truth doesn't need to be conspiratorial to be devastating.
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It just needs to be told.
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Here's the detail that has stayed with me since we started working on this.
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The Pepsi incident was the exact midpoint of Michael Jackson's life.
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He died on June 25th, 2009.
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The Pepsi fire happened on January 27th, 1984.
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He lived 25 years, four months and 29 days before the fire and 25 years,
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four months and 29 days after it.
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One day separates the two halves of his life.
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That fire in so many ways was the turning point that changed the entire trajectory.
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Michael Jackson survived burns, reconstructive surgeries, lupus, vitiligo, opioid dependency, rehab,
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a criminal trial, and two decades of chronic pain that never fully went away.
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He received $1.5 million from Pepsi as part of the financial settlement from the accident.
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Michael donated all of it, every dollar, to the burn unit at the hospital that treated him.
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Which went on to treat children who couldn't afford care?
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He was by any clinical measure a patient failed by a system
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that had no way of telling the most famous person on Earth
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that what he was asking for was going to kill him
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Those 15 seconds on that soundstage didn't kill Michael Jackson
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The 25 years of what followed did
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if you want to make the world a better place Take a look at yourself and then make a change Thank you.
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The Moment That Shook the World: A Real-Life Narrative for Practice
The video paints a vivid picture of the chaotic hours surrounding Michael Jackson's 2009 death, blending urgent emergency calls, internet breakdowns, and cultural analysis. This real-world scenario is perfect for english speaking practice—it’s packed with natural speech patterns, emotional tone, and varied vocabulary, from "cardiac arrest" to "editing war." By engaging with this narrative, you’ll learn to speak with clarity and confidence, mirroring the rhythm of authentic English.
Useful Chunks & Collocations to Master
- "the final domino in a chain": A powerful metaphor for a series of events leading to a climax. Great for IELTS speaking practice when explaining causes and effects.
- "the internet began to break": Colloquial phrasing for widespread technical failure. Natural in casual or formal discussions about technology.
- "commands this much screen time": Describes someone or something that dominates media attention. Useful for talking about pop culture or influence.
- "something didn't add up": Expresses doubt about a situation. Essential for critical thinking in conversations or essays.
- "rushed to the hospital": A common collocation for emergency medical situations. Perfect for daily life or story-telling.
Your Shadowing Challenge: Speak Like a Native
The shadowing technique—or "shadow speak"—is a proven way to boost fluency. Here’s your task: Watch the video segment where the emergency call and internet chaos are described. Pause after each 5-second clip, then repeat it immediately, matching the speed, tone, and stress of the speaker. Focus on phrases like "2.3 million page views in a single hour" and "so many people searched... they thought they were under cyber attack." Do this 3 times, then record yourself. Compare your version to the original—notice how closely you match the rhythm. This exercise trains your brain to process and reproduce English quickly, a key skill for IELTS speaking practice and real-world communication. Keep practicing, and you’ll soon speak with the natural flow of a native.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being reported · has been rushed · been told |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has been rushed · We've also been told · you've never heard |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | award, which is · kids who are · Those who were |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.