Earlier today I read an article that indicated Prince had developed a problem with chronic hip pain and had become a heavy user/abuser of Percocet, and that during his brief hospital stay after his plane had made an emergency landing early last Friday he was given a “save shot” to counteract the effects of an opioid overdose, and Percocet is an opioid drug.
I’d been doubtful that Prince had died of a drug overdose because he often spoke about how he didn’t take drugs, but it’s likely he had recreational drugs in mind and didn’t really consider pain medication to be drug use in the normal sense.
If he had a seizure on the plane they might have done the same thing, then let him go a few hours later because post-seizure it’s not always necessary to keep someone in the hospital. He could have had a panic attack. He could have had an allergic reaction to something (I know from personal experience that they don’t always keep you after they get one of those under control). We don’t really know what happened on the airplane, and we don’t know what happened at the hospital.
It’s headed in that direction because someone started some rumors and ran with them. Not because of any actual proof.
Withdrawal from something like Percocet (which seems to be the leading rumor) is extremely unlikely to cause death. Can we kill that notion already?
Drug reaction is more likely IF it was drug-related at all, or an accidental overdose IF it was drug related at all.
No, actually, they don’t have to mention that. Eventually there will be an official death certificate but Prince is just as entitled to medical privacy as anyone else. They could have found evidence of some disease-related process but unless it’s actually connected to the cause of death no, they don’t have to announce it. It’s none of the public’s business.
The statement was that there was no trauma, so he wasn’t murdered, and there’s no indication it’s a suicide, so it wasn’t self-murder. Other than that we got nuthin’
It’s possible we will never know - I had a nephew who laid down for a nap at the age of 24 and never woke up and the autopsy could find no cause of death. He just stopped. Maybe a heart arrhythmia or something, but those doesn’t show up on autopsy. At all.
Please provide PROOF that he “OD’d on Percocet just a few days ago” or stop spreading such a rumor.
Honestly, people, wait for all the official reports to come in. Nothing is served by that sort of wild speculation.
No one said ‘seizure on the plane’ but you. Official word is that he OD’d on the plane and had a Save Shot at the airport in IL. Doctors wanted to keep him for 24 hours be he left anyways.
There is actual proof. Did you do any homework before you claimed there wasn’t?
Withdrawal from opiates/opioid can cause both seizures and vomiting. People that vomit, especially while seizing can inhale the vomit and choke to death…it’s one of the ways you can die while withdrawing. I’m not making this stuff up, I actually looked these things up before I wrote them. And it’s hardly ‘a notion’ it’s just something I tossed out there, christ.
If anyone is jumping to conclusions here, it’s you. I really doubt either of these things is the case, but please provide PROOF that he was not murdered or killed himself before making any such statements.
In other words…back off.
I can’t believe the thread has gone on this long without anyone linking to the Charlie Murphy vs. Prince basketball game from Chappelle’s Show. So I’ll do it.
That’s the performance that really made me realize how good Prince was. Before that (as a child of the 80’s/90’s and not that into music) he was just that weird guy that did some weird stuff on stage and sang in a really high pitched voice.
Anyways, for those of you that don’t know, that was at a R&R Hall of Fame Induction and that performance was a tribute to George Harrison. That kid next to Tom Petty is George Harrison’s son.
That’s a story I have been laughing about with folks as we discuss this.
When I was in the 80’s, the only musicians that mattered, to me, were Prince and Peter Gabriel. I was a young, stupid, suburban college graduate working in Silicon Valley. I ended up rooming with an African American running buddy (ah, the clubs in San Franciso in the 80’s. DNA Lounge, DV8, the one where you danced over the plexiglass covered swimming pool. Good times). I remember him playing Dirty Mind and I just got it. Played the grooves off that record and all of Prince’s music since.
Understanding Prince’s music and talent was part of breaking out of my “suburban classic rock” music mindset and I will forever be greatful.
It really is stunning. You don’t get to see very much footage of Prince playing an instrument. You kind of know that “he plays all the instruments,” but actually seeing him pick up a guitar like its a plaything and just hurl it around and make it cry with what seems like almost no effort at all … just stunning.
He makes Tom Petty smile when he leans backwards off stage. Dhani Harrison has a huge grin. Prince gives a slight Mona Lisa smile, flings his guitar into the crowd, and struts offstage, leaving Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, and George Harrison’s son in a cloud of pixie dust.
When Prince was on stage, there were no other rock stars.
(I haven’t figured out who else was playing in the band, particularly who was playing the lead guitar parts before Prince took over for the solo.)
Cool! Thanks! Now I want to know who’s playing most of the keyboard parts, because especially at first it didn’t seem like Winwood was playing all that much—it was whoever the guy was next to him. And of course the percussionists and drummers.
Around 4:30? Not sure. Coulda been anything from an aborted trick (playing behind his head or with his teeth) to just trying to adjust how it was laying on his body.
He didn’t appear close enough to any speakers to be going for any kind of amp induced feedback.
If I had to guess, I’d guess he was just trying to adjust the strap. There’s a few times just before and after where he moves it around as well, just not quite as much as that.
After being in a state of shock for the last day and a half, I finally cried this morning.
Prince was not supposed to die this young. I was expecting him to be 100 years old and still looking like he was 35, and laughing at us mere mortals for aging due to our meat-eating lifestyles.
I was expecting him to be still cranking out music 30 years from now and it still be stuff that has me solemnly nodding my head like Billy when “The Kid” has his moment of redemption playing Purple Rain.
I was expecting my kids to attend his fucking concerts and listening to his music and knowing the words to his songs better than me. Now, I worry they will only see him as some old dead guy that was a superstar back in the 1980s (which will be ancient times for them).
I don’t even care what killed him. I don’t really want to know at this point. All I know was that this is a devastating loss to the world. There will never be another icon like Prince. Never. He was the one person on the planet who could be forgiven for every personality flaw he had (which were exceptionally numerous and in some cases, straight up ridiculous) because he was so gifted musically. And he wielded so much charisma he could’ve been very dangerous if he’d been an evil politician, but fortunately for humanity, he channeled that talent into his stage presence.
