The Truth About Michael Jackson’s Changing Skin Color

On this episode of Our American Stories, Michael Jackson’s career made him one of the most recognizable and most scrutinized people on the planet. As his fame grew, so did the attention on his appearance, especially his skin color. What the public saw was a dramatic lightening over time. What they didn’t know was that Jackson was living with vitiligo, a medical condition that strips the skin of its pigment. Simon Whistler, from the Today I Found Out podcast, shares the story of how the disease shaped Jackson’s look and his life.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people coming to you from the city where the West begins,
Fort Worth, Texas. Michael Jackson's story is one of immense
musical talent, global stardom, and significant controversy. Here to tell
the story about why Michael Jackson's skin color changed as

(00:32):
he aged is Simon Whistler from the Today I Found
Out YouTube channel and its sister the Brain Food Show podcast.
Let's take a listen.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
There was a story about you wanting to have a
little white boy play you in a Pepsi commercial.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
That is so stupid. That's the most ridiculous, horrifying story
I've ever heard. It's crazy. I mean why, Number one,
it's my face as a child in the commercial, me
when I was little. Why would I want a white
child to play me. I'm a Black American. I'm proud
to be a Black American. I am proud of my race.
I am proud of who I am. I have a

(01:10):
lot of pride and who I am in dignity. That's like,
you want an Oriental person to play you as a child.
Does that make sense? No?

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Many scandals marred Michael Jackson's personal life, overshadowing his otherwise
remarkable musical career. One such scandal was the obvious change
in his appearance, especially his skin color, which started from
the mid eighties too slowly but surely turn from dark
to white.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
So when did the color of your skin start to change?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Oh? Boy, some time after Thriller? I run afterward Thriller by.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
The mid nineties. When Jackson released his album History in
nineteen ninety five, it was more than obvious to even
his most dedicated fans that the man of Thriller from
nineteen eighty two looked nothing like the man who had
recently married Elvis Presley's daughter, Lisa Marie. By this time,
Michael Jackson was milky white, a skin color transition that

(02:06):
started almost a decade earlier, was more or less complete.
So what happened, don't bet? According to his family and
Jackson himself, the King of Pop had vitaligo, a condition
that causes the pigmentation of parts of the skin, which
usually results in white spots on the patient body.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Okay, number one, this is the situation. I have a
skin disorder that destroys the pigmentation of the skin is
something that I cannot help, Okay, but when people make
up stories that I don't want to be who I am,
it hurts me. It's a problem for me, Okay, I
care control.

Speaker 4 (02:42):
It's These are even more noticeable if the person has
a dark complexion, as in Jackson's case. The one in
two hundred and fifty or so people who have this
condition typically first starts seeing signs of it beginning between
ten and thirty years old. Proximately thirty percent of the
people who have it also have it run in their family,

(03:04):
which is true of Jackson.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
It's in my family, my father said, is on his side.
I can't control that. I don't understand. I mean, it
makes me very sad. I don't want to go into
my medical history because that's something that's private, but that's
the situation here.

Speaker 4 (03:18):
In addition to this skin disorder, Jackson also reportedly suffered
from systemic lupus arithmatosis, which, besides potentially being a very
serious condition, can also cause loss of skin pigmentation. When
the controversy about his changing skin color hitted, Zenith, Jackson
spoke openly about his vitaligo for the first time in

(03:39):
an interview he gave to oprah in nineteen ninety three.
He said, among other things, but.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
What about all the millions of people let's reverse it? Okay,
what about all the millions of people who sit out
in the sun to become darker, to become other than
what they are? Nobody says nothing about that.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
In the days after, at Jackson's request, condition was publicly
confirmed by his dermatologist, doctor Arnold Klein, who also stated
Jackson was first diagnosed with the condition in nineteen eighty four.
It was also confirmed that he had lupus arithmatosis, then
that it was in remission. Conspiracy theorists proposed that there
was much more to it than this, that in fact,

(04:18):
Jackson had no such disease, and that he instead systemically
bleached his skin using Benaquin cream and other medical cocktails
in his quest to look like a white person.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Are you bleaching your skin and here is your skin
lighter because you don't like being black? Okay?

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Number one? There as I know of, there is no
such thing as skin bleaching. I have never seen it.

Speaker 4 (04:43):
The obvious and extensive cosmetic surgeries he had on his eyebrows, eyelashes, lips,
and nose only served to enforce the theory that he
was simply purposefully tweaking his appearance even more by bleaching
his skin. So is there any truth to this? Doctor
Christopher Rodgers, dead medical examiner at the Los Angeles Coroner's
Office and the man who conducted Michael Jackson's autopsy, chimed

(05:06):
in on this. After performing the autopsy on Jackson, doctor
Rogers confirms that Jackson indeed suffered from vitaligo, most notably
with patches around his face, chest, abdomen, and arms. So
did he also bleach his skin? According to dermatologist doctor
Hannish Babu, Jackson did. This is sometimes a treatment used
for those with viteligo. When these white patches first started appearing,

(05:29):
you can see from certain of Jackson's concert footage that
he was trying to mask them with makeup matching his
original skin color.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
I just want to get this straight. You are not
taking anything to change the color of your skin. God, No,
you did not purpose.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
Trying to control it and using makeup. Who evens it out?
Because it makes blotches on the skin and I have
to even.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
Out my skin once the patches became too numerous to
easily hide with makeup, and he supposedly became tired of
the extensive time needed to apply the makeup every day.
He switched strategies and began the process of bleaching his skin,
supposedly under the care of his dermatologist and using twenty
percent monobezeal effor of hydroquinone ben aquin cream. Much later,

(06:10):
in June of two thousand and nine, after his death,
tubes of benequin and hydroquinone were found in Jackson's home.
As doctor David's saucer said, some patients with vitiligo get
to the point where it makes more sense to remove
the brown bits because so much of the skin is pale.
Besides giving him a white complexion, this also results in

(06:31):
him being prone to sunburns, which is why in later
years he often kept himself nearly completely covered when outside
in the sun. In the ends, only Jackson knew his
true motivation for ultimately choosing to bleach his skin, whether
as a treatment for his vitaligo to even out his
skin colour as reported, or as the conspiracy theorists claim
to further change his appearance to more of a Caucasian look,

(06:54):
though one would think the latter would be an odd
move for the co author of the line with Bill Botrel.
It doesn't massa if you're black or white.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
Why is that so important? That's not important to me.
I'm a great fan of art. I love Michael Angelo.
If I had a chance to talk to him or
read about him, I would want to know about what
inspired him to become who he is, the anatomy of
his craftsmanship, not about who he went out with last
night or why he decided to sit out in the
sun so long. What's wrong with I mean, that's what's

(07:24):
important to.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
Me, The story of Michael Jackson's skin color here on
our American Stories plea habib here, and I'd like to
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(07:45):
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