Unravelling 'Green Mile' star Michael Clarke Duncan's mysterious death and Omarosa's role in his final days
Green Mile actor Michael Clarke Duncan who hailed from Chicago, Illinois, passed away in September 2012 after suffering a massive heart attack. It was reported that Duncan had passed away due to natural causes while at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 54.
However, his untimely and sudden death raised many eyebrows with Duncan's family and friends claiming that there was some foul play with regard to his death. As his sister Judy claims in the documentary 'Autopsy: The Last Hours of… Michael Clarke Duncan', Duncan was "trusting people he shouldn't have". In the months leading up to his death, Duncan was dating Omarosa Manigault who was with Duncan when he suffered his first heart attack in July.
It was a pretty known fact that Omarosa and Duncan's family would often butt heads and did not get along. In her tell-all book 'Unhinged', she recalled how she was lying next to him on the night of his first heart attack and said, "I noticed a change in his breathing. His soft snores became ragged and then stopped altogether. I put my hand on his chest and realized he wasn’t breathing. I called 911 in a panic and told the operator what was happening, that my fiancé wasn’t breathing and might be having a heart attack."
After performing CPR on him, she shared, "He was still alive. The paramedics told me if it hadn't been for my efforts, he would have died." However, Duncan's family members were of the opinion that she is only sharing one side of the story. There were many questionable facts to his mysterious death with one of the most important being that even though Duncan's family had requested for an autopsy, no autopsy was performed making it very difficult to assess what happened to Duncan in his last days.
In 2012, LaToya Jackson slammed Omarosa and accused her of pulling the plug on Duncan and switching off his life support. There was also another reason that made people suspicious: when Omarosa heard that the 911 call she had made was going to be released by TMZ, she successfully stopped that from happening. Duncan's niece Karyn Johnson shared, "There were 911 calls that were blocked. We can't get that. I believe that his death wasn't natural or through complications. Maybe, somebody else had a hand it that."
Furthermore, post-Duncan's death, Omarosa claimed that she and Duncan had got engaged, claims which Duncan's longtime best friend Kevin Jones flatly denied. Another major red flag, according to Duncan's family, was when he decided to alter his will for Omarosa in 2013. According to TMZ, Duncan's sister Judy started questioning "whether the late actor’s fiancée unduly influenced him into rewriting his will months before he died and leaving almost everything to her."
She also alleged that at the time Duncan "was not of sound mind when he made the changes… slurring words and stumbling around." It was also reported that "Judy says her suspicions about Omarosa intensified when MCD was hospitalized following his heart attack... telling us Omarosa was fixated on MCD’s money when he was on life support. Another thorn in Judy’s side... Omarosa has already sold a bunch of MCD’s personal effects (watches, cars, his 'Green Mile' director's chair, awards, etc.)." Judy says "Omarosa sold the stuff without the family’s knowledge" and she's pissed.
However, none of these allegations have been proved and many attribute Duncan's death to his large size and body mass. Duncan was a known workaholic who had unrealistic expectations for himself and was known to always push beyond what he thought he was capable of doing. He was also known to have an extremely meat-centric diet which he changed and became vegetarian in order to have a better lifestyle.
Duncan had never had a sip of alcohol in the 54 years of his life given his unfortunate childhood experiences with an alcoholic father nor did he ever take any drugs. According to his friends and family, he took his health and fitness very seriously which further raised the question of his untimely death.
