Was the death of Michael Jackson a hoax? Some say it was. Ever since June 25, 2009, the day on which the New York Times first reported the performer’s death, the rumor mill has been humming with speculation that accounts of the Gloved One’s demise have been greatly exaggerated ("Michael Jackson, 50, Is Dead"). A report in the Weekly World News, for example, suggests the performer’s collapse, hospitalization, and subsequent burial are a deception, nothing less than the fulfillment of a fifteen-year-old psychic prediction that the sequined star would someday “go underground” to escape the burden of his fame (Pruitt). In keeping with this line of reporting, images of Jackson, on the lamb, alone and in the company of Elvis Presley, have flooded the Internet[i], perhaps leading some more gullible readers to believe the King of Pop alive and well in an understandable, if regrettable, self-exile.

Of course, a serious review of the evidence of Jackson’s death quickly dispels such mythmaking. Jackson’s death certificate, his obituary in the New York Times, the investigation into his death which has resulted in a finding of homicide as the cause of death, persuasively argue that Jackson’s death was real, a sad but undisputable occurrence which brings to mind an even more interesting question than whether or not Jackson’s death was “faked”, namely, why might anyone, even for a moment, consider Jackson’s death to have been a ruse (Watkins)?

The answer to this question lies in the psychology of celebrity itself . . .