When Michael Jackson died, all eyes turned to Dr. Conrad Murray.
Murray immediately made it clear he did not give Michael the two drugs most people were talking about – Demerol and Oxycontin. But now, according to a law enforcement official, Murray has admitted that he did inject Jackson with Diprivan on the morning he died.
Today, in a new interview, nurse Cherilyn Lee says she turned down Jackson’s request for the powerful drug, and revealed to Access Hollywood how sleep became something the pop star desperately wanted.
“Mr. Jackson did not present himself as a drug addict and from January to April, I didn’t see that in him,” Lee told Access. “Even when it came to the Diprivan, he was looking for something that was going to help him sleep.”
Lee said Jackson was not addicted to drugs. He only wanted to sleep. So at Jackson’s request, Lee sat in his bedroom with him and watched him as he tried to sleep.
“The night I stayed with him… He said, ‘I want to you to see how I sleep, ‘cause I want you to see that I don’t fall asleep. Or I fall asleep it takes awhile, but then I wake up after a couple hours.’ And that was before he started talking about the Diprivan,” she recounted.
“He said, ‘Once it hits my veins, I’m knocked out. And I wake up the next morning I feel good, I’m full of energy,’” Lee continued. “He was very excited about it – ‘Please find me someone.’”
Lee would not and her warnings that Diprivan could cause death went unheard by the pop star.
Lee said Jackson also asked for her help with his diet. He wanted more energy for his comeback concerts. But there was a problem when Lee tried to draw blood for a nutritional panel.
“When I was drawing his blood, his veins were awfully, awfully small. And he said, ‘Oh my goodness, I have these little squiggly veins,’ and he just started laughing about it,” Lee recalled. “He said, ‘Doctors always have a hard time finding my veins.’ And later it kind of dawned on me — why would doctors be looking for veins? Basically it’s nurses [that deal with veins].
“I’m sure people kept missing when they were doing whatever, and that’s why it looked like he had track marks,” Lee added.
But following Jackson’s death, Lee said she did have regrets.
“I did,” she said. “You can only the best you can with a person. You can lead them to everything that should do right… But you can’t make anyone do anything.”
A rep for Murray would not comment on the story.
“It’s a waste of time responding to all these timed ‘leaks’ from ‘anonymous’ sources,” a rep for Murray said in a statement to Access Hollywood.