Prince's former drug dealer reveals star's decades-long addiction to pain killers (Report)
A person claiming to Prince's former drug dealer said the superstar was hooked on painkillers for more than 25 years, according to a interview published Saturday.
The dealer, who was identified only by the psuedonym Doctor D, claimed the singer would spend up to $40,000 at a time on opiates, the Daily Mail Online reported.
Prince died Thursday in his home at the age of 57. The cause of his death hasn't been determined medically, but TMZ earlier reported he may have been battling drug addiction in the days leading up to his passing. TMZ also broke the news of his death itself.
In the Daily Mail interview, the man calling himself Doctor D said he sold Prince drugs for more than 25 years, from 1984 to 2008. He characterized Prince as "majorly addicted," turning to illegal purchases of the drugs to help him to cope with "crippling stage fright" because his phobia of doctors kept him from getting prescriptions legally.
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The man told the Daily Mail he met Prince during the filming of "Purple Rain" when he was already a "heavy" opiate user. He said he started selling Prince speed and painkiller Dilaudid.
"He needed the drugs because he was so nervous – he could be nervous in a room with just five people in it," the man said in the interview. "He was scared to go out in public, he was scared to talk to people and didn't like to go on stage – he had the worst case of stage fright I'd ever seen."
He said Prince bought large supplies of Dilaudid and Fentanyl, a painkiller progessive-release patch. "I think the most he ever spent was around $40,000 at one time" on those drugs, he said.
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