The Reason Some Are Convinced Michael Jackson Is Still Alive

Michael Jackson, known to the world as The King of Pop, began performing at the tender age of 5 years old. Jackson, the eighth out of 10 children, joined his father's creation, the Jackson 5, in 1964, and soon was sharing lead vocals with his older brother Jermaine, according to Biography. Before long, little Michael was the group's lead vocalist, and the Jackson 5 was on their way to success, signing with Motown founder Berry Gordy, moving to Los Angeles, and even opening for The Supremes in 1969.

Jackson, by then a teen heartthrob, launched his solo career in 1972 with his first solo album, "Got to Be There." The Jacksons ended their relationship with Motown in 1976, but Michael continued to release hits throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including iconic songs like "Thriller" and "Bad." But Michael wasn't just known for his singing and songwriting skills. He was also a talented performer and dancer, especially famous for his signature dance, the Moonwalk, all of which helped make him a pop music legend.

However, Jackson's life was also full of personal turmoil. In later years, he alleged that his father had been abusive, whipping him and his siblings with a strap when they were younger. Jackson also suffered from a skin condition called vitiligo, a skin pigmentation disease that causes pale blotches, which some people believe he tried to manage with skin lightening treatments. He also had a series of plastic surgeries, beginning with a rhinoplasty at the age of 21, after he broke his nose during a dance rehearsal in 1979, according to Life and Style Magazine.

In 2002, Jackson told ABC the rhinoplasty "helped me breathe better so I can hit higher notes," and claimed to have only had "just two" plastic surgery operations in his nose and "no plastic surgery on my face." However, his mother, Katherine Jackson, later claimed her son was "addicted" to plastic surgery, as well as struggled with prescription drugs, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. His health issues worsened as he got older, and at just 50 years old, he died as a result of acute propofol intoxication, according to History. On June 25, 2009, Jackson was pronounced dead at the UCLA Medical Center after suffering a cardiac arrest in his Los Angeles home, per CNN.

However, although it has now been over a decade since his passing, some fans have been unable to accept the reality that Jackson is really dead. Rather, in the years since Jackson's death, many conspiracy theories have popped up claiming that the death was a hoax and Jackson is really alive and well, living his life out somewhere in obscurity, away from the public eye. One such theory gained a fair amount of traction last year, and it was all due to one particularly talented Michael Jackson impersonator.

According to the South China Morning Post, one content creator, who goes by the name @michaeljackton.official on TikTok, took the internet by storm thanks to their uncanny ability to impersonate the late performer. Some of their videos, which depicted the Michael Jackson lookalike performing the Moonwalk and seemingly perfectly mimicking the famous singer's moves and mannerisms, quickly went viral, launching rumors and speculations in the comments that the so-called impersonator was actually no impersonator at all, but was really the King of Pop himself.

That is far from the only "Michael Jackson is still alive" conspiracy theory floating around the internet. Others claim that Jackson really faked his own death, perhaps in order to escape the public scrutiny he had endured for his whole life. Some theorists claim that a video, which emerged after the coroner removed Jackson's body from his L.A. home, shows the coroner's van pulling into an empty parking lot and the "real" Jackson leaving the van and disappearing into a building, never to be seen again, according to BU Now. Others point to the fact that Jackson had a closed-casket public memorial service as further proof that the famous pop singer is still alive, and perhaps had a lookalike buried in his place.

Michael Jackson's daughter, Paris Jackson, has alleged that she believes her father was really murdered, saying that she recalls him saying he feared someone would kill him one day. "All arrows point to that. It sounds like a total conspiracy theory and it sounds like bullshit, but all real fans and everybody in the family knows it. It was a set-up," she told Rolling Stone in 2017. But while it seems likely that there will always be rumors and suspicions surrounding the unexpected death of such a culturally significant figure, all evidence from the autopsy and investigation into Jackson's death prove that it was a tragic accidental overdose that took the singer's life.