Original subtitles

♪♪

I pinch myself all the time

because I have such a charmed life

that I feel almost guilty about it at times

because things have really worked out well,

and I really enjoy my life and what I'm doing.

♪♪

♪♪

Hey, everyone.

Welcome to "How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

Tom Petty is an American music icon

whose brand of classic rock 'n' roll

with his band of musical brothers, the Heartbreakers,

spoke to millions for over 40 years.

Songs like "American Girl" and "Free Fallin'"

are the soundtrack to the lives of fans around the world.

Though a rock god to many, he was as mortal as any of us --

afflicted with the very human traumas of childhood abuse,

depression, divorce, and addiction.

In 2017, he embarked on a gruelling six-month tour.

One week after his triumphant final show, he was dead.

Tonight, Tom Petty's mysterious ending,

and how it really happened.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Petty: I wanna thank all of you for coming out tonight!

[ Cheers and applause continue ]

We love you dearly.

I want to thank you for 40 years of a really great time.

This was an opportunity to sort of say thank you

to all their fans who had supported them over 40 years.

Scott: It was like the pinnacle of Tom's career,

knowing that this might be the last concert tour ever.

It was huge. They were selling out.

McKittrick: The 40th anniversary tour

ended with three shows at the Hollywood Bowl.

50,000 people each time -- bigger than a small town.

Just huge crowds.

[ "American Girl" plays ]

Fittingly, the last song was "American Girl."

♪ Well, she was an American girl ♪

♪ Raised on promises ♪

Halperin: People loved it.

They gave him a rousing ovation.

He loved his fans -- really, seriously loved his fans --

and they loved him back.

♪ She was ♪

♪ An American girl ♪

These shows were fantastic, but I think it put pressure on him.

He wasn't in great physical shape at that time.

Thank you so much!

[ Cheers and applause ]

God bless ya! Good night!

I didn't realize that he was in a lot of pain.

[ Cheers and applause continue ]

When he leaves the stage, you can see he's limping off.

♪♪

Something wasn't right.

♪♪

Sad news to report this morning --

rock legend Tom Petty has died.

Scott: We were watching TV.

A bulletin came over saying Tom Petty had passed away.

Woman: He passed away Monday

after being rushed to a Los Angeles hospital.

He was found unconscious in his Malibu home Sunday night.

I'm like, "That's impossible.

He -- He was there a week ago."

DeCurtis: It shocked me.

When I heard that he had died, I was just floored.

Leadon: It's just really hard to comprehend that

that person that is such a big part of your life is gone.

Harben: I wish I could have been there somehow to help him.

That it was -- possibly could have been prevented.

Greene: How is this possible? He just played a concert.

How can he go from two hours at Hollywood Bowl

to dead in seven days?

Petty: I wanna thank you for 40 years of a really great time.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Elam: Tom Petty was basically a poet.

He wrote these beautiful lyrics that you could think,

"Well, that applies to my life."

[ "American Girl" plays ]

George-Warren: When I heard "American Girl,"

that was it for me.

That became my song.

♪ Well, she was an American girl ♪

The lyrics really spoke to me.

♪ She couldn't help thinkin' that there ♪

♪ Was a little more to life ♪

♪ Somewhere else ♪

♪ It was a beautiful day ♪

I'm a huge fan of "Running Down a Dream."

♪ I had the radio on ♪

♪ I was drivin' ♪

Just such a -- such a rush.

♪ Yeah, runnin' down a dream ♪

♪ That never would come to me ♪

"Refugee" was special.

♪ It don't really matter to me, baby ♪

It's real rock 'n' roll, but great rock 'n' roll.

♪ You see you don't ♪

♪ Have to live like a refugee ♪

He distilled so much of the country

and its history into his songs.

♪ And I'm free ♪

DeCurtis: "Free Fallin'," I think,

is just an extraordinary song.

♪ Free fallin' ♪

DeCurtis: It captures, in a very concise way,

that combination of feelings that you're both free

and you're in free-fall.

♪ Free fallin' ♪

♪ Free fallin' ♪

Scott: Tom's greatest talent in the world --

he could write songs under three minutes

that meant something to most everybody.

DeCurtis: There's a reason why those songs

meant something to so many people,

and that's because he said it, he meant it, and you felt it,

and, you know, that's what any art sets out to do.

Zollo: I definitely think Tom will be considered

one of the great champions of rock 'n' roll,

and his music will live on forever.

[ Cheers and applause ]

♪♪

Tom said time spent with his dad --

a lot of it, he felt scared.

Elam: The abuse, both physical and emotional,

started very young.

♪♪

Generations of fans are mourning the loss of Tom Petty,

the singer/songwriter once described as a quiet,

unassuming rock legend.

The 66-year-old was reportedly rushed to a Los Angeles hospital

Sunday night in full cardiac arrest.

Just a few hours ago, a family spokesman confirmed he had died.

♪♪

Elam: Tom Petty was born on October 20, 1950,

in Gainesville, Florida.

He had a younger brother

who was about eight years younger than him.

Gainesville was a very sleepy, little college town.

Halperin: It was a very working-class town.

It was an amalgamation of students and farmers,

and there was a big music scene.

♪♪

Harben: We had all the freedoms in the world as children.

We ran in the woods.

We played a little baseball together.

We played football -- just having a great time.

Leadon: He was a natural-born entertainer.

Even if you were just there hanging out,

just you and him, he was doing his very best

to make sure you were entertained.

He was very dry but also very funny.

♪♪

Elam: Tom's mom, Kitty, worked in a tax collector's office,

and his dad, Earl, was a traveling salesman.

Leadon: Kitty was a real sweet, soft-spoken,

really Southern woman.

His father was more traditional, small-town Southern,

and they didn't get along at all in many ways.

His dad was just a wild guy,

and Tom said time spent with his dad --

a lot of it, he felt scared.

Leadon: Kitty was his rock.

She was the one who really believed in Tom.

Halperin: His mother fought numerous ailments

throughout her whole life -- epilepsy and bouts of cancer --

and Tom would always try to do the best he could for her.

♪♪

I remember my uncle got a job --

because he was in the film business locally --

on a movie set with Elvis on a film called "Follow That Dream."

My aunt drove up and said,

"Would you like to go see Elvis?"

And I said sure, you know?

And so, I went down, and we did see Elvis.

He really was just taken by Elvis Presley

and his performance of songs like "Hound Dog."

♪ You ain't nothin' but a hound dog ♪

♪ Cryin' all the time ♪

♪ You ain't nothin' but a hound dog ♪

♪ Cryin' all the time ♪

Harben: I was there waiting when he came home,

and he told me, "Hey, I got to see Elvis Presley."

And it was such a thrill to Tom.

And I said, "Well, Tom, my older sister, Linda,

has a little rack of 45 RPM records, all Elvis."

So we made a trade, and we traded for a slingshot.

And that's when he became kind of first obsessed and realized,

I think, the power of music,

when he got those early Elvis records.

Zollo: He got to learn that early rock 'n' roll,

and he loved it.

He learned those songs even before he could play them.

Harben: That following Christmas,

he got an acoustical guitar from Santa Claus.

And he taught himself how to play the guitar,

and he played and played and practiced.

Zollo: He learned four chords

and almost immediately started writing songs.

Elvis kind of launched the journey for Tom.

I just played Elvis records most of the time,

and then when The Beatles and The Stones

and all that came along, my father actually thought

I had gone very strange because I stayed in the house

listening to records all the time.

Leadon: His father was a hard-nosed Southern guy

that had grown up in the swamp country of north Florida

next to an alligator-filled lake.

He was into hunting and fishing and boozing.

Tom was a sensitive, artistic soul,

and he had a very strong sense of right and wrong.

Harben: He was a gentle person, and I don't know if that's

because of his mother being such a big influence on his life

and maybe being his protector from his fairly rough father.

Tom said that sometimes, he would just pop you.

The abuse, both physical and emotional, started very young.

I think when he was 5 years old,

Tom had been playing with a slingshot

and hit a pebble into a Cadillac.

Elam: When his father found out about it,

apparently, he took a belt and just beat Tom to the point

that he had welts all over his body,

his mother and his grandmother having to tend to him.

And he would say that his mom would often step in the way

to try to stop this abuse against Tom from his father.

Leadon: I didn't witness the abuse that Tom spoke about,

but I knew they didn't get along,

that there was a vibe there.

I kind of escaped into that world

of just listening very intently to these records.

Looking back, I think it was probably a safe place mentally

for a really abused child.

For Tom Petty, music -- rock 'n' roll --

became really an escape hatch.

♪♪

Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles!

When The Beatles appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show,"

Tom Petty was watching.

They played "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

♪ I think you'll understand ♪

♪ When I ♪

♪ Say that somethin' ♪

♪ I want to hold your hand ♪

♪ I want to hold your hand ♪

Tom said as soon as he saw it, he knew that was it.

He never wanted to be Elvis.

He wanted to be the Beatles.

My picture of Elvis was the American dream.

I mean, this was a kid from the South

who had broken all the rules.

But that didn't look like something you could be to me --

you know, to be Elvis.

But The Beatles, that looked like something

that could be done to me.

Zollo: It was about having a real band with, you know,

the visceral energy of rock 'n' roll.

To Tom, that's what it was all about.

♪♪

Leadon: I was with Tom

when he had heard she was on her deathbed

and there was nothing anyone could do, and he was devastated.

♪♪

Woman: The autopsy on rocker Tom Petty

has not revealed a cause of death.

The coroner is now awaiting toxicology results.

The 66-year-old was found unresponsive

and in cardiac arrest on Sunday.

Foul play is not suspected.

♪♪

As a teenager, all Tom wanted to do was play live

and learn music.

Tom Petty's first band was with a few local lads

in Gainesville called The Sundowners.

We all got together in Tom's living room and set the band up.

Zollo: Tom said the first time they plugged in and played together,

he said, "Biggest rush of my life."

And once Tom got this little group together, that was it.

It was practice every day.

Leadon: I just was really struck with how good he was onstage,

how much charisma he had.

Zollo: Very early on, they got offered a weekly gig

where they were making money as The Sundowners,

and Tom said it started there and never stopped.

Elam: Well, later, he gets into

a bit of a rift with The Sundowners,

and he leaves the band and joins another band -- The Epics.

Eventually, the name "The Epics" just started seeming to be

out-of-date with the music,

and finally, Tom came up with Mudcrutch.

♪♪

Greene: Mudcrutch -- it was a lineup

that changed over the years,

but crucially, he met Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench,

who were a huge part of the Heartbreakers later.

Halperin: They attracted a huge following.

They had no discrimination where they played.

They were even playing in topless bars.

Leadon: We played five nights a week, five hours a night,

so it was a great education.

♪♪

Roberts: Tom started writing some great rock,

and it kept getting harder and harder.

It was pretty amazing. He was a great writer.

They play a lot at the "Mudcrutch Farm,"

as they called it.

Boulware: It's like a mini Woodstock.

Everyone showed up with their sleeping bag,

and the band set up and just played until they got tired.

Roberts: We started talking about,

"Well, we got to do something.

We got to do a demo tape, and let's try to get a record deal."

♪♪

Petty: In Gainesville at the time, there was no --

probably still, there's no recording studio.

There's no way to really get anything together

beyond playing the college gigs and the bars.

And so, we'd play all over the South,

and after a while I said, "Well, I want to make a record."

So I went out here. I drove out here.

♪♪

Roberts: We drove three days nonstop.

We're like a bunch of explorers,

'cause we're going across the desert for the first time.

And we're like, "Wow, man, cactuses."

Greene: When they go to LA, it's the ultimate small fish in,

now, in the big pond, and there's sharks everywhere.

We started going to payphones and get the yellow pages

and go to record companies.

And finally, we got an appointment

with Shelter Records.

Denny Cordell owned the label with Leon Russell,

and he was like, "Okay, I want to sign you guys."

In the studio, they recorded their first single,

"Depot Street", in 1975,

and the single didn't do anything.

Greene: I mean, they're this huge Gainesville band.

They cut one single that was barely released,

and then the whole thing just collapsed.

Elam: And at this point, the record label, it's like,

"We're done with you."

But they realize that they have a great talent in Tom Petty,

so they want to keep him.

But it wasn't working.

Tom didn't want to be a solo artist.

He knew he needed a band -- his surrogate family.

So that's when he forms Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

with ex-Mudcrutch members Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench

and two other Gainesville musicians --

drummer Stan Lynch and bassist Ron Blair.

Once Tom formed the Heartbreakers,

they went into the studio,

and everything that wasn't working for them

as Mudcrutch was working for them now.

DeCurtis: That first Tom Petty record,

it was such a distinctive sound.

There was a sense in which Petty, you know,

tapped into whatever the deepest sources of rock 'n' roll are.

It was both instantly familiar and very distinctive.

♪♪

McKittrick: The unfortunate thing is

they recorded this great album,

they put it out in the world -- it did not sell.

But meanwhile, across the pond,

they were doing fantastically well.

They broke in England first.

McKittrick: Their music was actually on the charts.

So Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

did a tour over there,

and they had a top-40 hit with "Anything That's Rock'n'Roll,"

which they played on BBC's "Top of the Pops."

♪ Girl, you better grab hold ♪

♪ Everybody's got to know ♪

♪ Anything that's rock 'n' roll's fine ♪

♪ Anything that's rock 'n' roll's fine ♪

♪ Anything that's rock 'n' roll's fine ♪

They felt like rock stars

because their music was being played on the radio.

They were on covers of magazines.

They were in the music papers.

But when they came back to Los Angeles,

they were barely known.

They had the album out there,

and it just simply was not selling.

♪♪

George-Warren: It only takes one person to believe in you,

and luckily for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,

they would meet Jon Scott.

This is my friend Jon Scott here.

Hey, now!

We call him "Sizzlin' Memphis Jon Scott."

Scott: I got a job

as head of national album promotion for ABC Records,

and I sat and listened to this record.

I'm kinda going, "This is pretty good."

And then "Breakdown" came on...

[ "Breakdown" plays ]

...and every hair on my body stood up.

I get chill bumps, and I said, "This is a hit record."

♪ Baby ♪

♪ Breakdown ♪

♪ Go ahead and give it to me ♪

♪ Breakdown ♪

♪ Now I'm standin' here, can't you see? ♪

Side two ended with "American Girl."

♪ Well, she was an American girl ♪

♪ Raised on promises ♪

Scott: At that moment, I was in a trance

because this music hit me so hard.

I got up and ran to my boss' office and said,

"Who are these guys?"

Well, he said, "Oh, this is that punk band,

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers."

And I looked at him, I said, "What do you mean, 'punk band'?

This is a rock 'n' roll band."

He's laughing, "Look at this guy.

He's got black leather jacket on,

bullets around his neck.

Radio stations are telling us it's a punk band,

and so we're gonna drop him from the label."

I said, "Don't drop him.

Just give me six weeks to try and get this record played."

McKittrick: He actually went to the band

after one of their shows at the Whisky a Go Go.

Scott: And I said, "Tom, have you ever heard your record

on the radio in Los Angeles?"

And he went, "No, why?"

I said, "Well, you're gonna start hearing it Monday morning

once an hour, every hour, on a new rock station."

And he went, "Bullshit."

And for some reason, I just turned around and said,

"Tom Petty, I'm gonna break your career wide open."

♪♪

Welcome back to "How It Really Happened."

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

release their self-titled first album,

and after a slow start, their songs were charting.

They were on their way to becoming superstars --

that was, until Tom Petty decided

to stand up to his record company

and take on a fight he wasn't sure he could win.

♪♪

Elam: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are riding high.

1978, they come out with "You're Gonna Get It!,"

and then they're working -- just the next year, 1979 --

on "Damn the Torpedoes."

This is really feeling like one of their best albums.

Greene: They worked for months on that record

and had songs like "Refugee"...

♪ You see you don't ♪

♪ Have to live like a refugee ♪

♪ Don't have to live like a refugee ♪

Greene: ...and that record was the culmination of everything

that he'd been working for for his whole life.

Just every song was great.

♪ Here comes my girl ♪

Zollo: "Here Comes My Girl" was also on "Damn the Torpedoes."

♪ Here comes my girl ♪

It just shows that early on, Tom got good as a writer.

He was writing classics from the beginning,

and he had a lot of diligence and great work ethic.

But it all came down to the passion.

That's what drove him.

Elam: They're in sync. They're gelling.

They're loving this third album that they're putting out,

but before it comes out,

the record label that they're with

gets sold to another record label,

and during that time is when he realizes

how slimy the music business could be.

♪♪

As a young kid signing this contract,

he did not understand

that he was signing away publishing rights.

He didn't know that meant

that he wouldn't have ownership of it.

So he decides that he's going to fight

the big, bad music company.

He goes so far to file for bankruptcy

to make it really clear

that he was not going to take this deal

without having the rights to his own music.

Halperin: They sued him.

It ended up in court -- a lot of litigation.

In fact, he actually did a tour just to pay for his legal bills.

When they went on tour during the trial,

they called it the "Lawsuit Tour."

Halperin: He wouldn't back down.

He really wanted justice

and he wanted to be paid properly,

and in the end, he won.

And that was a seminal point in the music business

because that created a lot of precedent for other artists

to stand up to their record labels.

♪♪

That was one of the hardest parts for him

when he was fighting all those fights at that point.

It really drained his spirit.

There were times when he could have lost everything

or he could have given up, but he never gave in.

He fought those fights.

♪♪

During this time, in 1980, Tom's mom passes away.

She's been battling epilepsy.

She has been sick for so long.

She eventually gets cancer.

She was only 53 years old.

Leadon: I was with Tom

when he had heard she was on her deathbed,

and there was nothing that anyone could do.

Elam: It's a massive loss for Tom.

It was a little bit of an untethering for Tom

because she was his angel.

Leadon: He knew that he had her total support and love.

She really believed in him as a person and as an artist.

She loved him unconditionally.

He was devastated.

♪♪

Zollo: During the early '80s,

that was a crazy time in his life.

It was also the start of MTV.

♪♪

DeCurtis: Many artists of Tom Petty's generation,

you know, kind of rolled their eyes when MTV came along.

You know, there was this element of, you know,

"I'm a rock star. I'm not an actor."

But I think Petty thought,

"You know, let's see what we can do here."

And when you think about those videos like

"Mary Jane's Last Dance"...

♪ Last dance with Mary Jane ♪

♪ One more time to kill the pain ♪

...and "Don't Come Around Here No More,"

they're like watching little movies.

♪ Don't come around here no more ♪

Zollo: MTV just made them even more famous.

♪♪

They were really on a roller coaster there

for a while where they would do another album and a big tour,

and another album, and it never really stopped.

And that's when there was a lot of cocaine,

and, you know, even when they were partying all the time,

they didn't just get crazy.

They liked to party and then do good music.

I mean, it was always about that,

and Tom would come up with great stuff.

♪♪

Greene: No one knew at the time,

but the late '90s was a really dark period.

George-Warren: Heroin was just this blanket of numb,

and I think, horribly, that was the enticement.

♪♪

♪♪

McKittrick: With this great success on MTV,

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

were also having great success on radio and in album sales.

One album after another were major hits on the charts.

"Long After Dark," "Southern Accents,"

"Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)."

It enabled the Heartbreakers

to do these massive concert tours.

After the Heartbreakers had

an extremely successful 1980s decade,

Tom Petty was ready to do something different,

and it soon became apparent that "Full Moon Fever"

was not going to be a Heartbreakers album.

It was going to be a Tom Petty solo album -- his first.

This was something that did not sit well

with the other Heartbreakers,

particularly with Stan Lynch, the drummer.

Zollo: After "Full Moon Fever,"

you know, he played again with the Heartbreakers.

That's who he was.

His solo work was tremendous,

but he always came back to the band.

They're the Heartbreakers, after all,

some of the great musicians of our time.

Tom Petty -- he was the boss in the band, in a sense.

He really had a musical vision

and he had big ears in the studio,

but there was acrimony between him and the drummer,

Stan Lynch, who had been in the band since the beginning.

He and Stan did not get along.

They were always arguing.

But he loved Stan's playing, especially live.

♪♪

But Tom realized, "As great as he is,

I don't want to argue all the time."

And he had to fire Stan, and that was very hard for him.

During this entire period, Tom Petty is still married

to his high-school sweetheart.

He and Jane have two daughters.

Leadon: Jane loved the band.

She was the perfect companion for Tom for many years.

I think, personally, that it's hard on a relationship

when they're spending a lot of time apart,

as Tom had to do when he went on the road so much.

Elam: They weren't making each other as happy,

and it was clear that changes needed to be made.

Tom moved out of their house in Encino and moved to a house

that he would later call the chicken shack.

And what was good and bad about that situation

is it gave Tom a lot of opportunity

to write songs by himself,

but the bad part about it is he was alone.

He was in a difficult place in his life,

and he had no one to turn to.

Even though he did feel, from my understanding,

that the marriage was over,

leaving the family -- that's hard for anyone.

He was a loving dad.

He adored his girls.

After the divorce, it was a tough time.

George-Warren: Tom Petty's album "Wildflowers"

is really the mirror to his soul,

I think, in that period of the mid-1990s.

He was in his mid-40s then,

and that kind of change is massive.

And I think he was dealing with all these things by crafting

this amazing record -- "Wildflowers."

Songs like "Time to Move On" and "You Don't Know How It Feels."

♪ You don't know how it feels ♪

♪ No, you don't know how it feels ♪

♪ To be me ♪

George-Warren: You get all these different kinds of emotions.

You get this bittersweet sadness.

You get this anger.

You get this resentment.

♪ Rescue me ♪

George-Warren: "You Wreck Me."

You know, you get the anger.

"You wreck me, baby."

♪ You wreck me, baby ♪

♪ Yeah, you break me in two ♪

♪♪

Elam: So, his marriage

and Stan's relationship with the Heartbreakers,

they're breaking up at about the same time.

These losses hit Tom Petty pretty hard,

and so he descends into a clinical depression.

He knows he needs to get help,

but he's relying on self-medicating with heroin.

And his addiction gets really bad.

It's a dark time.

I did see him during that period.

He was not the happy Tom I knew, and it was tough to see that.

He just seemed really despondent.

I didn't know if he was on something --

I wasn't sure -- but I sensed something was going on.

Elam: Tom hadn't taken the time to deal with the battle scars

that he had built up throughout his lifetime --

dealing with the relationship he had with his father

and the emotional baggage

that had weighted him down through all of these years.

Leadon: Tom never really reconciled completely

with his father.

His father would come to the concerts,

and Tom would give his father money.

I didn't think Earl ever really gave Tom his approval.

His dad had his gold and platinum records

all over the walls,

but Tom thought he just liked the status

of being the dad of Tom Petty.

I think he just had a hard time showing it.

I tried to talk to him later, after his dad had died,

and he just didn't think his dad really cared about him.

George-Warren: Heroin was just this blanket of numb,

and I think, horribly, that was the enticement for Tom Petty.

Elam: Tom had a lot of self-realization to do

to get off of heroin.

He went into extreme clinical therapy and hospitalization,

and he was able to kick it.

♪♪

There's so many painful things that we all go through in life,

and they become a load that you carry around.

When you forgive those things,

you can drop that load and move forward.

Elam: He kicked heroin and restarted his life,

and he found the love of his life -- Dana York.

When he was with Dana, he became a happy man again,

and she helped him in so many ways.

She was a really genuine, wonderful person,

and it was lucky that he met her.

McKittrick: They got married at Petty's Malibu house,

which was actually administered

by none other than Little Richard,

which Tom Petty being such a huge rock 'n' roll fan,

was just over the moon about.

♪♪

[ Cheers and applause ]

Halperin: Tom Petty had never seemed happier

to people who knew him.

Completely different person.

Completely different outlook on life.

Tom Petty was back.

♪♪

[ Cheers and applause ]

When he leaves the stage,

you can see he's limping off the stage,

and that's the only indication that something wasn't right.

♪♪

I love to play.

I love it when we all walk out and start to play,

so I'm not ready to say that it's time to close the book.

I'm just lucky to be here.

Glad to be here.

♪♪

McKittrick: In 2008, Tom Petty put together a reunion

at what he would later call

"the least-requested reunion in rock history"

of his original band, Mudcrutch.

I thought we were just gonna go jam, maybe, for the weekend,

but I talked to Tom several times and he said,

"At some point, I'm sure there'll be a record deal."

And I'm like, "Wow, we're gonna do a record."

Boulware: I think he realized that his own roots

were something he wanted to re-explore

and that he had some great music to be made

that didn't exactly fit the Heartbreakers format.

♪♪

The whole experience was just amazing.

Tom did that whole thing -- the whole Mudcrutch thing --

for love, for brotherly love,

and for good music and good times.

♪♪

I wanna thank all of you for coming out tonight.

[ Cheers and applause ]

40 years with almost the same bandmates is remarkable.

It says a lot about Tom Petty and what kind of leader he was.

As you've probably heard, we're celebrating

our 40th year on this tour.

[ Cheers and applause ]

It became one of the highest-grossing tours

in recent times, mainly because people were just

still so infatuated with Tom Petty.

And at the end of the tour -- which makes sense,

because Tom Petty has made Los Angeles his home --

he ends at the Hollywood Bowl.

And he's there onstage.

It's September. It's a beautiful night.

People being there, celebrating them.

Tonight is the very last show of a very long tour.

[ Cheers and applause ]

George-Warren: I would say there's probably

three generations of fans

that were at those Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers shows.

I think that thought probably made him very, very happy.

His married life is great.

He's a grandfather.

He's got all of these things that are just right in his life.

Good night!

But at the same time, when he leaves the stage,

you can see he's limping off the stage,

and that's the only indication that something wasn't right.

♪♪

It turns out that he had fractured his hip

many months earlier,

and he went on tour this whole time with this fractured hip.

Leadon: They had a motorized cart,

and they'd take him from the dressing room

to the stage stairs, help him up the stairs.

But he would never let on,

when he was onstage, anything was wrong.

But you see that he's having trouble moving around.

George-Warren: And then, Tom found out that

what he thought was a partial fracture

was a full-on break in his hip.

I can only imagine the sort of pain that he was suffering.

Man: From the entertainment world, we have just learned

that legendary rock singer Tom Petty

has been rushed to the hospital.

Woman: Petty, who is 66, was found unconscious earlier today.

It was like, "What?

What? Are you sure?"

Freeman: According to reports, rocker Tom Petty

of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,

was found unconscious from heart failure.

My son texted me like, "Did you hear?"

Halperin: He suffered from numerous physical ailments...

And I just was, "This has got to be a hoax."

Halperin: ...emphysema, knee injury...

"This can't be real."

Just didn't seem possible.

And then he had this really bad hip.

I'd seen him very sick on some of the tours, and he said,

"When you have a tour like that booked, you go."

He never wanted to disappoint his fans by canceling a concert.

♪♪

[ Voice breaking ] He'd been at the hospital.

♪♪

I'm gonna get emotional.

I can't get through this without getting very emotional.

Tom had had cardiac arrest and wasn't going to make it.

He was on life support.

Doctor said they were just kind of keeping him alive

until the family could get there.

And they finally took him off life support,

and he passed away.

♪♪

Fans are shocked and heartbroken

over the sudden death of rock legend Tom Petty.

According to his manager, Petty suffered cardiac arrest

and could not be revived.

He was just 66 years old.

And I'm just like, "What?

He just played a concert.

How is this possible?

How can he go from two hours at Hollywood Bowl

to dead in seven days?"

It just made no sense.

♪♪

Elam: When the autopsy comes out,

that's when everyone learns that Tom Petty

had a mix of different types of fentanyl in his body.

He had a prescribed patch, but then there was also

two other kinds that were in his body.

Woman: The Los Angeles medical examiner

says musician Tom Petty died of an accidental overdose

of several medications, including fentanyl.

An autopsy revealed prescription opioids

were in his system, along with sedatives and an antidepressant.

Elam: There was a whole cocktail of drugs in his system,

and who knows how these drugs

may have been interacting within his body.

Fentanyl is about 100 times more potent than morphine,

50 times as potent as heroin.

Fentanyl is used in anesthesia procedures

all the time, in surgeries,

for things like chronic back pain,

hip pain, knee pain.

But it leads to a cycle where now you're controlling the pain,

but then you go out and do your rigorous tour

or working or sports,

and it's kind of masking the pain.

So the root problem's still there.

Then when the pain medication wears off,

the person's oftentimes left in a more painful state.

So then they require more pain medication to manage it.

Halperin: He wore a fentanyl patch.

But then, we later learned that he had two

non-prescription fentanyl doses in his system.

It was very similar to Prince.

When Prince died, he had a bad hip,

he resorted to fentanyl, and here we go.

Another rock star dies.

Woman: Petty's wife and daughter said the musician was suffering

from a fractured hip that only got worse.

They released this statement saying,

"On the day he died, he was informed his hip

had graduated to a full-on break

and it's our feeling that the pain was simply unbearable

and was the cause for his over use of medication."

I felt guilty that I wasn't there with him.

He may not have wanted me to be there,

but I felt like

there could have been something I could have done.

This is my friend Jon Scott here.

Scott: It's tough.

It's really tough when you have a friend like that for 40 years,

and it's just --

you saw him a week ago, and the next week, he's gone.

That's all I can say. It was just --

I still don't believe it, to be honest with you.

Leadon: For me, he was always that teenage guy, you know?

I remember him smiling

the last time I saw him as he was driven away.

It's the same smile, you know, that I used to always get

if he was happy, you know, and glad to see me.

♪♪

DeCurtis: Tom Petty's legacy is his songs.

There's no doubt about that.

Tom Petty's songs come across as powerfully now,

when you hear them, as when you first heard them.

Greene: Tom will be seen as one of the great songwriters

of the 20th century.

Just somebody that tapped into something so American.

It's a remarkable gift.

Scott: Tom Petty was the greatest rock 'n' roll singer,

rock star, that I've ever known in my life.

And he was my hero, and he always will be.

I can't think of anybody that could replace him.

Songs mean something to people, and what more can you ask for?

You know, if you're gonna be a songwriter

and have a rock 'n' roll band, what more can you ask for

than for those songs to touch somebody that way?

It's just beautiful.

During his career, Tom Petty made 13 studio albums

with the Heartbreakers.

In addition, he released three solo albums,

two albums with the Traveling Wilburys,

and two with Mudcrutch.

To say he was a prolific artist is an understatement.

In 2018, a year after Petty's death,

his family put out a tribute collection of his music,

which included unreleased songs.

His daughter Adria called the collection

"an American treasure" because, she says, he was one,

and we couldn't agree more.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.

♪♪