Its really annoying to me how people spend more time gossiping about Michael than appreciating his art. He was an entertainer and owed nothing to the public. He owed no explanations. Yet people still speculate over his skin and over his plastic surgeries. He is made fun of by people who never really took the time to try and understand him.

No, Michael didn't want to be white. No, he didn't have 100 plastic surgeries. No, his nose didn't fall off (clearly a myth but debunked by his autopsy).

VITILIGO
"A disease that causes the loss of skin color in blotches."

We'll talk first about his most obvious change in appearance: his skin color. As often as I hear people talking about Michael, someone is always talking about the difference between "white michael" or "black michael". It's important to remember that Michael was always a black man. So many times he made clear that he was proud of his race. Stop calling him white.

"I'm proud of my heritage. I'm proud of it. I'm proud to be black. I'm honored to be black, and I just hope one day they will be fair in portraying me the way I really, really am..." -MJ 2002

"I'm a Black American, I am proud of my race. I am proud of who I am. I have a lot of pride and dignity." -MJ

The media likes to dance around the fact that he suffered from an auto immune disease called Vitiligo. They'll say that Michael "claimed" to have the disease but they refuse to confirm it when it's obvious. Michael wasn't lying. The proof is in his autopsy report (which I won't show here). Still, some people refuse to accept it, instead saying that him bleaching his skin triggered the disease, which is not true. You can't develop vitiligo by using bleaching creams. But it can be genetically passed down. Joseph, Michael's father, stated that he had an aunt that suffered from the disease.

"Everybody's trying to make a big deal out of it... They say, 'he try to paint himself white'. That's not true. Michael got vitiligo. We saw it comin' on him... at [an] early age. You know, just a little spot. My aunt had the same thing." -Joseph Jackson

Michael never used bleaching creams to "trigger" the vitiligo. It was confirmed through his medical records that he used the medicine Benoquin that helped get rid of the dark patches he still had after years of suffering from the disease.

Below are pictures of Michael, where the vitiligo was visible.

discoloration in his fingers ^

visible white blotch on his upper arm ^

LUPUS
"An inflammatory disease caused when the immune system attacks its own tissues."

This isn't as known as his vitiligo, though it played its part in his change of appearance. It causes red 'butterfly' rashes on the face. It also causes weight gain in the face or 'moonface'.

I also found that the medicine he used for lupus furthered his vitiligo. Which makes sense; his skin was visibly becoming lighter around the same time that he was diagnosed with lupus (1986).

'Butterfly' rash

'Moonface'

PLASTIC SURGERIES
Only three surgeries were ever confirmed by Michael. Two on his nose and one on his chin, and there's no reason to believe he had more than that.

"Gradually, as I lost weight, my face took on it's present shape and the press started accusing me of surgically altering my appearance, beyond the nose job I freely admitted I had, like many performers and film stars... They have said I had bone surgery done on my face. It seems strange to me that people would jump to that conclusion and I thought it was very unfair." -MJ

"I'd like to set the record straight right now. I have never had my cheeks altered or my eyes altered. I have not had my lips thinned, nor have I had dermabrasion or a skin peel. All of these charges are ridiculous. If they were true, I would say so, but they aren't. I have had my nose altered twice and I recently added a cleft to my chin, but that is it. Period. I don't care what anyone else says- it's my fave and I know." -MJ

Can you believe those quotes are from the 1980's?

Michael was extremely self conscious of his nose due to years of teasing. So he made the choice to have it done. He might have been done with the surgeries if it wasn't for his lupus. It caused complications during the healing process and he had to have it reconstructed.

Later, he had a cleft put in his chin, simply because he thought he'd like it. That's it. But because so many couldn't see past the change in his skin color, people continue to believe the extreme lies about the amount of plastic surgery he had. They refuse to be open minded, or to even look. Just look at these comparison pictures.

CONCLUSION
And after all of this, people still believe that he's changed too much. They forget that he's aged, his weight changed, his hair changed. All of this can cause a person's appearance to look different. Try cutting off your hair/growing it out and see how different you look. See if you still look the same in thirty years. How would you look if your skin color completely switched?

The media is sick and it's madness. I'm done with thoughtless accusations. It's their responsibility to show viewers the truth, not lies. But since so many reporters suck at their job, I guess it's up to Michael's fans to make the truth known :)

"I don't understand why the press is so interested in speculating about my appearance anyway. What does my face have to do with my music or my dancing?" -MJ