Jackson Getting Burned: The Video Surfaces

Us magazine has obtained video showing Michael Jackson's hair catching fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial in 1984.

It is, observes "Early Show" national correspondent Hattie Kauffman, "the moment (his) life changed."

Jackson as at the top of his career at the time. The "Thriller" album had just come out.

In the first take as the Pepsi commercial was being filmed, everything went smoothly.

But in the sixth take, pyrotechnics ignited while he was at the top of some stairs. Incredibly, he continued to dance, for a full ten seconds, even as flames burned away his hair and scalp.

Jackson biographer and longtime friend J. Randy Taraborrelli, who was in the audience that night, recalls that, "Michael went down and then everybody went down on top of him, and you knew something had occurred. Then people started saying, 'He's been burned, he's been burned!" '

The severity of the burns was visible at the top of his head, as he was rushed offstage.

It's believed, says Kauffman, that the second- and third-degree burns on his scalp and face led to his addiction to painkillers.

"This," says Taraborrelli, "was when he decided that it was OK -- not only okay, but necessary -- to take pain medication."

Almost a decade later, the pop icon acknowledged his drug addiction, saying, "This medication was initially prescribed to soothe the excruciating pain that I was suffering after a recent reconstructive surgery on my scalp."

Now, Kauffman points out, pain medication is playing a pivotal role in the investigation of Jackson's death. Detectives removed bottles of the powerful anesthesia Propofol, also known as Diprovan, from Jackson's rented mansion. Probers are focusing on several doctors, including Jackson's cardiologist, Dr. Conrad Murray, who was with Jackson when he died.

"If the police can establish that Dr. Murray, or any other doctor, provided Diprovan to Michael Jackson in his home, outside a hospital capacity, then the crime would be negligent homicide," says defense attorney Trent Copeland, a CBS News legal analyst.

Jackson's fans weren't informed of the severity of the accident 25 years ago, Kauffman notes. Instead, the most famous image of the day was Michael waving from a gurney.

After the 1984 incident, Jackson began wearing wigs and hats to hide the scars, and increasingly turned to pain killers, sedatives, and finally, the anesthetics that are at the heart of the ongoing investigation, Kauffman says.