Jackson Needs Lung Op

Although it seems Michael Jackson is sometimes the poster child for quirky pop stars, his official biographer recently gave one possible explanation for Jacko’s somewhat reclusive ways – the singer’s battling for his life.

Biographer Ian Halperin recently told the U.K.’s Sun Jackson has an inherited condition called A1AD – alpha-1 anti-trypsin deficiency – in which sufferers lack a protein that protects the lungs.

Photo: AP Photo
In this Nov. 8, 2007 photo, Michael Jackson poses on the red carpet during the RainbowPUSH Coalition Los Angeles 10th annual awards in Los Angeles. 

“He needs a lung transplant, but may be too weak to go through with it,” Halperin said. “He also has emphysema and chronic gastrointestinal bleeding, which his doctors have had a lot of trouble stopping. It’s the bleeding that’s the most problematic part. It could kill him.”

Jacko is also reportedly nearly blind in one eye.

Halperin told the paper the singer is incredibly frail at this point, and has worked for years with his doctors to keep the genetic disease from progressing.