Is Michael Jackson really dying?

Ian Halperin, the man who is writing his unauthorized biography, claims that he is deathly ill. The claims gained a lot of traction during the last few days because Jackson's people did not deny them for a long time. I read that his people usually dismiss rumors that are circulating in the media about him instantly.

Now we have this bit of reporting from Rolling Stone Magazine:
"Rolling Stone did some digging today and determined that many of Halperin’s other assertions don’t hold up. The first line of Halperin’s biography reads 'Ian Halperin is also a former winner of the Rolling Stone magazine Award for Investigative Journalism.' This came as news to us, so we looked in our own archives and discovered this claim has been greatly exaggerated: He did win an RS honor, but it was the College Journalism Award in 1985 and it was split among the staff at Concordia University’s student newspaper in Montreal. Halperin also co-wrote a pair of “Kurt Cobain was murdered, maybe” books, scandalous biographies about James Taylor and Celine Dion (title: Behind The Fairytale - A Very, Very, Unauthorized Biography) and a new book called Hollywood Undercover: Revealing the Sordid Secrets of Tinseltown (not exactly The Greatest Generation)."

RS later adds:

"Still, Halperin’s claims are intriguing: Jackson was seen in a wheelchair earlier this year and The Sun quotes his brother Jermaine saying, 'He’s not doing so well right now. This isn’t a good time.' Plus, Jackson did claim to be sick when he was avoiding that whole Bahrain lawsuit trial in London."

During the last eight years liberal political commentators have constantly repeated the phrase "don't believe anything until it's officially denied." It might apply in this case, as well.