CONTRASTING accounts of Tupac Shakur's final days in hospital have added fresh fuel to conspiracy theories that he faked his death.
The gangsta rapper – who would have turned 51 today – spent six days in intensive care after a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas.
Official accounts from doctors and police say Tupac slipped into unconsciousness as he was put in an ambulance and never woke up.
However some fans refuse to believe the rap idol is really dead, and there have been numerous "sightings" over the past quarter of a century.
Wild conspiracies claim he faked his own autopsy picture and is now living with his fugitive aunt in Cuba.
The theories have been stoked by people close to him including a Black Panthers "bodyguard" who claims he smuggled the wounded rapper on a plane to Barbados.
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Attention has focused on alleged discrepancies over whether Tupac regained consciousness as he lay critically injured at the UMC Hospital in Las Vegas.
Members of his entourage who kept a vigil at his bedside claim he was "laughing and joking" shortly before his death.
It contrasts with the official version that Tupac – who had a lung removed after two bullets hit his chest – was in a coma for six days then died from respiratory failure and cardiac arrest.
Sgt Chris Carroll, the first Vegas police officer on the scene, insists Tupac lost consciousness moments after he pulled him from the car.
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He recalled recently: "I kept asking over and over, ‘Who did this? Who shot you?’ And he basically kept ignoring me.
"And then all of a sudden in the snap of a finger, he changed. And he went from struggling to speak, being non cooperative, to an 'I’m at peace' type of thing.
"And that’s when I looked at him and said one more time, 'Who shot you?'
"He looked at me and he took a breath to get the words out, and he opened his mouth, and I thought I was actually going to get some cooperation. And then the words came out: 'F*** you.'
"After that, he started gurgling and slipping out of consciousness. At that point, an ambulance showed up, and he went into unconsciousness."
Sgt Carroll went with him in the ambulance to the University Medical Centre of Southern Nevada, and said he never woke up.
However Death Records music boss Suge Knight – who was wounded in the same attack – has told a different version.
He claimed Tupac was in good spirits days after the shooting, so much so that he could not understand how it was possible for his condition to deteriorate so badly.
"I mean, when I left that hospital, me and Pac were laughing and joking," he told the documentary Who Shot Biggie & Tupac.
"I don’t see how somebody can turn from doing well, to doing bad."
Hinting at suggestions his friend could have pulled a fast one, he continued: "I’m gonna tell you that with Pac, you never know."
Tupac's fiancee Kidada Jones, daughter of music legend Quincy, said the rapper appeared to wake up when she played him Don McLean’s song Vincent on a CD player next to his bed.
She told Vanity Fair how she heard him moan and saw his eyes open.
“If you can hear me, move your feet," she told him, then saw the sheets started rustling at the foot of the bed.
She then asked: “Do you know I love you? Do you know we all love you?” – and said he nodded in response.
Enduring mystery
Tupac, then 25, was one of the biggest stars in rap music when he was gunned down in a hail of bullets on September 7, 1996.
No one has ever been charged over his death, but police named Compton Crips gangster Orlando "Baby Lane" Anderson as the prime suspect.
Hours before the shooting, Tupac was involved in an alleged punch-up with Anderson following a Mike Tyson fight at the MGM Grand.
It is claimed Anderson rounded up a crew to get revenge, and waited for the rapper outside Knight's Club 662.
They didn't find him there, but later spotted Knight's black BMW and caught up with it at a red light on Flamingo Road, it is claimed.
Anderson's uncle Keffe D Davis confessed to his role in the shooting in a book published in 2019.
He said he made eye contact with Tupac and Knight as he pulled alongside in a rented Cadillac.
Keffe wrote: "Like two rams locking horns Suge and I looked each other dead in the eye….No words exchanged, the time for talking had passed, the s*** was about to go down."
Anderson, in the back seat, is said to have fired at least 15 shots with a Glock pistol.
One bullet grazed Knight's head, but he was able to speed away from the scene before being stopped by cops on Las Vegas Boulevard.
Knight revealed Tupac's last words to him in a police interview four days later.
The rapper did not realize the extent of his own injuries and was more concerned about Knight wounds, he claimed.
As he sped off looking for a hospital, Tupac told him: “You the one they shot in the head. You shot in the head,” according to a police transcript.
Cops complained Knight gave them "no information of value" in identifying the suspects in case files unearthed by The Sun.
He claimed he did not recognised the gunmen.
Anderson died in 1998. Davis was never arrested.
'Fake autopsy photo'
Tupac was shot twice in the chest and was also hit in the arm and thigh, reports said.
However conspiracy theorists have cast doubt on the official autopsy and claimed a photo of Tupac's corpse is fake.
YouTuber DJ Skandalous claimed there are “discrepancies all over the place” on the coroners report.
A 1996 driver's license shows Tupac's height as 5ft 10in and his weight at 168lbs, but the report says he was 6ft tall and weighed 215lbs.
DJ Skandalous also questioned the authenticity of autopsy photos that were allegedly leaked online.
“A thing I noticed about the autopsy picture is the Machiavelli tattoo that he had on his neck was missing,” he said.
"This could be because the photo was pixelated and is not HD – but from what I see, the Machiavelli tattoo is not there
"The other thing I found suspicious about the autopsy picture is that Tupac was in a hospital in a coma for six days, but when you look at the autopsy picture that's leaked on Google images, his head is shaven and his face is shaven.
"Why would they shave his face and his head if he's in a coma and in critical condition?"
Down the years photographs have played a key part in fueling conspiracies about Tupac.
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A photo published in 2019 appears to show Tupac hours after he was gunned down – when the authorities insist he was in hospital fighting for his life.
An alleged photo of him dying in his hospital bed that is said to have mysteriously disappeared just after it was taken also stoked theories the rapper faked his death.
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