Various doctors were “competing” to treat Michael Jackson, each offering ever-stronger painkillers long before his 2009 death, the King of Pop’s ex-wife testified.
Debbie Rowe, the mother of Jackson’s two older children, told jurors that the singer had a “very low tolerance for pain” and that over the years doctors had prescribed potent drugs like Demerol, Dilaudid, Oxycodone and Vicodin. “His fear of pain was incredible,” Rowe said during the the trial, in which Jackson’s 83-year-old mother Katherine is suing tour promoter AEG Live. The family matriarch is the main plaintiff in the multi-million dollar case against AEG Live, which she accuses of negligently retaining doctor Conrad Murray to look after Jackson.