Elvis Presley's stepbrother David Stanley blames his doctor for death at 42: 'Who needs 10,000 pills?'

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Elvis Presley’s stepbrother, David Stanley, has blamed his doctor for his untimely death.

The "King of Rock and Roll" was only 42 when he died on August 16, 1977, while reading on the toilet at his home in Memphis, Tennessee, because of cardiac arrhythmia.

Dr Jerry Francisco, the Shelby County Medical Examiner who supervised the autopsy of the singer, also revealed that he suffered from "mild hypertension" and "coronary disease that had gone undetected," as per Commercial Appeal. 

Elvis Presley's stepbrother David Stanley claims singer's personal doctor 'killed him'

David Stanley, Elvis Presley's stepbrother and former tour bodyguard, claims overmedication led to the singer's death.

He told Express.co.uk, "Dr Nick [George Nichopoulos] gave him over 10,000 pills in the last eight months of his life. Without Dr Nick, Elvis would have died in the 21st century, Nick would be in prison and would have died in prison."

Stanley went on to say, "The doctors killed him. Who needs 10,000 pills? Who needs 33 sleeping pills to go to sleep at night? Who needs cocaine and amphetamine to wake up every day? And they say he had health problems…my friend, you take as much dope as that, you’re going to have some health problems."

In the 31 months leading up to the singer's death, Dr Nick apparently prescribed 19,000 doses of drugs to Presley, with a final prescription written just 12 hours before his death.

Although Nichopoulos was later charged with overprescribing stimulants, depressants, and painkillers to not only Presley but also Jerry Lee Lewis, he was ultimately acquitted.  

David Stanley found it hard to watch Elvis Presley's 'self-destructiveness'

The late singer’s brother also addressed the criticism he faced for speaking about Elvis Presley’s death.

He expressed, "When I talk about Elvis, I talk about his medications costing him his life. I'm very adamant about it, very vocal about it. Fans go, 'How could you talk that way about Elvis?'"

Elaborating further, he stated, "Be there for five years, the last years of his life, watch him go from King to 255 pounds — those were his words — totally wrecked and do the job to keep him there alive as long as he can."

"Whether it be too much food, whether imbalance from his water because of the medications, go through all of that, then come to me and tell me how much you love Elvis," added Stanley.

Stanley expressed, "Because I was there every day, and the hardest thing for me was to watch that self-destructiveness, nothing could stop him. To watch that self-destructive spirit… and I walked into his bathroom, and then he was gone. I wish the people could have known that guy."

Author said 'there were no rehabs' for Elvis Presley

This comes after Greg McDonald gave an insight into Elvis Presley's battle with addiction in his 2023 book 'Elvis and the Colonel: An Insider's Look at the Most Legendary Partnership in Show Business', as per OK! Magazine.

He wrote, "There were no rehabs that were respectable to go to if you were a big star like Elvis. They just didn’t exist. And when Elvis was in Graceland, he’d hide for weeks at a time."

"It wasn’t healthy. People would say, 'You’ve got to get him out of the house and get him on the road, so he’ll quit this,'" added the author.