45 years ago, the world lost one of the greatest ever musicians as Elvis Presley died.
August 16, 1977 saw the music world mourn after 'The King' passed away at just 42 years of age, with a recent film documenting his life and times getting rave reviews and heavily tipped for an Academy Award.
The true cause of his passing remains a mystery - after his family sealed the results of his autopsy for over four decades.
The final years of his life had seen the health of the once-lithe star deteriorate rapidly after years of drug abuse.
In the run-up to his death, the Hound Dog star weighed 25 stone and had spent months gorging on cheeseburgers in his room, which he refused to come out of.
According to reports, he needed a full-time nurse and apparently refused to bathe throughout 1975, causing him to develop sores on his body.
As a result of his horrendous diet, he suffered from chronic constipation and a post mortem found he had compacted stool that was four months old sitting in his bowel.
The singer was also on a cocktail of drugs and had been prescribed almost 9,000 pills, vials and injections in the seven months before his death.
An autopsy was carried out but the report was immediately sealed for 50 years by the family, sparking a slew of speculation as to what killed him.
Dan Warlick, chief investigator for the Tennessee Office of the State Chief Medical Examiner, attended the autopsy and fuelled the popular theory that Elvis died while straining to go to the toilet.
It was his girlfriend Ginger Alden who found the rock and roll star's body with his pyjama bottoms around his ankles and his bottom in the air.
Of the distressing scene, Ginger, who was just 21 at the time, wrote in her memoir: “His arms lay on the ground, close to his sides, palms facing upward.
“It was clear that, from the moment he landed on the floor, Elvis hadn’t moved.”
“I gently turned his face toward me. A hint of air expelled from his nose.
"The tip of his tongue was clenched between his teeth and his face was blotchy.
“I gently raised one eyelid. His eye was staring straight ahead and blood red."
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