When Michael Jackson died from a painkiller-induced cardiac arrest in 2009, the internet was flooded with pictures of the emaciated star lying dead in the mortuary.
Covered in marks and puncture wounds, paramedics reportedly mistook the 50 year old for a hospice patient because he weighed so little.
And witnesses claimed that Jackson’s ‘prosthetic nose’ was absent, exposing the true state of his nasal cavity after decades of surgery.
“The prosthesis he normally attached to his damaged nose was missing, revealing bits of cartilage surrounding a small dark hole,” the onlooker told Rolling Stone magazine of the horrifying scene.
The source added: “Jackson’s face which he had so painfully reworked and concealed from the public for decades now lay out in the open undisguised under the harsh lights.”
For years Jackson denied having anything other than two rhinoplasty procedures – the first being in 1979 when he fell while dancing and broke his nose.
Delighted with the results, the star debuted his slimmed-down nose on the cover for his Off The Wall album, and in 1981 he underwent a second surgery.
But despite his denials, by the early nineties his nose had changed considerably, becoming increasingly thin and with a forever-narrowing tip that turned up at the end.
Those close to the star claimed that he’d turned to steroids instead of surgery, with the drugs causing skin thinning. Delievered by painful injections, patients are often anesthetized first with propofol – the drug he would later rely on as a sleep aid before it killed him.
By 2002, rumours were rife that Jackson’s real nose had completely collapsed, forcing him to wear a prosthetic.
Music video director Rudi Dolezal alleged that when he was filming the Dangerous tour in Munich in 1992, he was told Jackson refused to appear on camera if he wasn’t performing because, “on those days, he doesn’t have a nose.”
“He needed a plastic nose that took hours to put on with putty and makeup,” he told the New York Post’s Page Six, claiming Jackson’s entire transformation was sparked by not wanting to look like his father Joe who he ‘hated’.
Still Jackson continued his denials, telling Martin Bashir he’d only had two nose jobs – as he can remember’.
“I’ve had no plastic surgery on my face. Just my nose. It helped me breathe better so I can hit higher notes,” he insisted.
But Dr Pamela Lipkin, a surgeon specialising in rhinoplasty, said Jackson was likely suffering from a ‘nasal cripple’ and that what remained of the feature was beyond repair.
“What I think has happened is that something in his nose, a graft, an implant, something has now come out through the skin,” Lipkin told Allure.
“And that’s why he’s probably got a hole in his skin…. They’re called nasal cripples. People whose nose has been done so many times that there is no nose really to breathe through.
“Michael Jackson has what we call an end-stage nose, a crucified nose, one that’s beyond the point of no return.”
The most damning account came from Jackson’s former housekeeper Adrian McManus, who claimed that star had an entire jar of fake noses he would chose from.
“In his closet he had a jar of fake noses and stage glue, which he told me he used for disguises,” he told Rolling Stone.
“But some were similar to his real nose, just without the hole.”
