Reports of Prince Percocet Overdose to Relieve Strain of Atlanta Concert Leads Sheriff to Tweet Passive Aggressive Response

Prince Cause of DeathNew reports claim Prince’s increasing reliance on pain medication may have led to a drug overdose, as a white Arizona sheriff tweeted a passive-aggressive response to the singer’s death.

Prince’s Atlanta concert could have tipped the scales for the singer. He may have been forced to take more Percocet to relieve pain from illness after the April 14 show.

TMZ reports Prince allegedly overdosed on Percocet in the days leading to up his death. When his plane made an emergency landing at Quad City International Airport in Moline, Illinois April 15, medical responders gave him a “save shot” to alleviate symptoms at a local hospital. The singer supposedly took the pills after his Atlanta concert, the last show he gave publicly.

Prince was reportedly taking the prescription medication for a hip problem. He had hip surgery around 2010. In the week leading up to his death, Prince went to Walgreens near his home in Minnesota four times. He was last photographed leaving the drug store Wednesday night.

According to The Guardian, the alleged overdose that triggered the emergency landing hasn’t been confirmed. The Grammy-winner was reportedly gravely ill, yet he declined a longer stay at an Illinois hospital.

Less than a week later, Prince died April 21 at the age of 57. He was found unresponsive in an elevator at his Paisley Park home in Minneapolis.

An autopsy began at 9 a.m. Friday at the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office. Dr. A. Quinn Strobl, chief medical examiner, told Fox 9 that determining a cause of death could take “several days.” Full toxicology scan results will “likely take weeks.”

Amid many celebrities mourning the loss of The Purple One, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona took the moment to celebrate drug rehab in his jails.

white-sheriff-prince

He then deleted the tweet and put the following in its place, patting himself on the back.

Still independent.

We hope this story was worth your time. For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed Black-owned and independently run. We didn't get here by waiting on ad budgets that were never built to prioritize us. Our readers did that.

Corporate support for Black media has always been thin. Outlets like ours get roughly 1% of the $170 billion spent on U.S. advertising each year, and that margin is shrinking further as advertisers walk back the DEI-linked commitments they made in 2020. That's the backdrop. It's not why we're asking.

The wider picture isn't any steadier. Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under, it's rarely the ones built to center a Black perspective from the ground up that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Back to top