Michael Jackson in an Oxygen Chamber

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The year was 1986. The muck-racking publication the National Enquirer came out with photos of Jackson inside a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. According to the accompanying article, Jackson slept in the chamber. He said that doing that extended his life by decelerating his aging process. The pictures were authentic but Jackson’s assertions were not. True to his mastery of manipulating the media, Jackson made up the story to promote a movie he had just done. The film was Captain EO, directed by the iconic Francis Ford Coppola.

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From Oprah Winfrey's interview to Michael Jackson, February 10 1993:

[...]

Michael: It's crazy. Why would I want to sleep in a chamber? (laughs)

Oprah: The rumor was that you were sleeping in the chamber because you didn't want to grow old.

Michael: That's stupid. It's completely made up. I'm embarrassed. I'm willing to forgive the press, or forgive anybody, I was taught to love and forgive, which I do have in my heart, but please don't believe these crazy, horrifying things.

Oprah: Did you buy the Elephant man's bones? Were you trying to get them for...

Michael: No. That's another stupid story. I love the story of the Elephant man, he reminds me of me a lot, and I could relate to it, it made me cry because I saw myself in the story, but no I never asked for the...where am I going to put some bones?...

Michael: ....and why would I want some bones?

Oprah: I don't know. So where did that story come from?

Michael: Someone makes it up, and everybody believes it. If you hear a lie often enough, you start to believe it.

1, 2, 4 Michael Jackson in hyperbaric chamber.

3. Michael Jackson, Leave Me Alone, videostill, 1989; director Jim Blashfield