Prince's Former Drug Dealer Alleges 25-Year Addiction

Daily Mail has exclusively reported that late music icon Prince — rumored to have required a "save shot" to counter the effects of an opiate overdose days before his death — may have been addicted to painkillers for 25 years.

Known only as "Doctor D," the drug dealer told Daily Mail that Prince would spend "up to $40,000 a time" on six-month supplies of patches and pills capable of delivering powerful opiates without arousing outside suspicion.

"He was always a pill man — that's why nobody ever saw him do drugs," the dealer said. "He never shot up or snorted cocaine." He claims to have sold drugs to Prince from 1984 to 2008.

The anonymous drug dealer conjectures that Prince's death might have been caused when a doctor unwittingly prescribed painkillers for Prince's hip ailment without knowing the singer was already deeply addicted to opiates. He says Prince suffered from stage fright, and felt he needed drugs to be able to perform, but was scared of doctors so never obtained his drugs of choice legally.