Michael Jackson, pop music legend, dies at 50 - CNN.com

(CNN) — Michael Jackson, the show-stopping singer whose best-selling albums — including “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad” — and electrifying stage presence made him one of the most popular artists of all time, died Wednesday, according to multiple sources, including the Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press.

Michael Jackson, shown in 2008, was one of the biggest pop stars in history.

CNN has not confirmed this information.

He was 50.

He collapsed at his residence in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles, California, about noon Pacific time, suffering cardiac arrest, according to brother Randy Jackson. He died at UCLA Medical Center.

Jackson’s blazing rise to stardom — and later fall from grace — is among the most startling of show business tales. The son of a steelworker, he rose to fame as the lead singer of the Jackson 5, a band he formed with his brothers in the late 1960s. By the late ’70s, as a solo artist, he was topping the charts with cuts from “Off the Wall,” including “Rock With You” and “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.”

In 1982, he released “Thriller,” an album that eventually produced seven hit singles. An appearance the next year on a Motown Records 25th-anniversary special cemented his status as the biggest star in the country. Timeline: The life of Michael Jackson »

For the rest of the 1980s, they came no bigger. “Thriller’s” follow-up, 1987’s “Bad,” so