Prince 'was diagnosed with AIDS 6 months before he died and refused treatment'

It has been claimed that the 'Purple Rain' icon had been addicted to painkillers, after officials revealed that opioid medication had been found on his person when he passed away last week.

Those close to him claim that he had not slept for six days straight in the week leading up to his death, before he found dead at his Paisley Park Minnesota home, aged just 57.

Now, The Daily Mail reports that sources tell The National Enquirer that Prince contracted HIV in the 1990s, before developing into AIDS six months ago. Apparently he refused treatment, believing that God would heal him.

" Doctors told Prince his blood count was unusually low and that his body temperature had dropped dangerously below the normal 98.6 degrees to 94 degrees," a source said. "He was totally iron-deficient, very weak and often disoriented. He rarely ate and when he did, it all came right back up.

"His face was yellowish, the skin on his neck was hanging off and the tips of fingers were a brownish-yellow."

His lawyer and former manager L. Londell McMillan said: "People use medication. The question is, are you on meds in a dangerous way?"

"Everybody who knows Prince knows he wasn't walking around drugged up. That's foolish. No one ever saw Prince and said 'He looks high.' It wasn't what he was about."