Very few people will argue that music legend Michael Jackson is the greatest of all time as far as pop music is concerned. At his peak he kept the whole world spellbound with numerous chart-topping hits like Beat It, Billie Jean, Thriller, They Don't Care About Us, Man In The Mirror, Black Or White, Heal The World etc. Yet for all his fame and stardom, MJ, as he is fondly called by his fans, lived a troubled life on and off the stage.
One of the most debated controversies he faced was why he bleached his skin from black to white.
As a growing kid, the story I heard was that MJ hated being black, and wanted to be more white. That impression made me to see MJ as someone who betrayed his race. It made me to have some reservations about him even though I enjoyed his music. Then I discovered the truth...
Did MJ really want to become more white? Absolutely not. In 1986 MJ was diagnosed with Vitiligo which is an incurable disease that destroys the body's pigment cells, leading to white patches that get bigger with time as can be seen in the following pictures...
Now let's look at some of MJ's close pictures to clearly see the effects of Vitiligo on his skin...
At the time he was attacked by Vitiligo, the disease was not well understood. Also, MJ was at the peak of his fame and struggled with how to manage it. At first, he tried to cover the patches on his hands and face with makeup, but when the patches expanded, he had no option than to undergo a special treatment. Here is a confirmation of this by his dermatologist in this CNN video.
Skin that has been affected by Vitiligo is very sensitive to sunlight. This is why MJ usually wore long sleeve shirts and often used umbrellas.
After his death in 2009, his Autopsy report confirmed that he, indeed, suffered from Vitiligo.
Was Michael Jackson proud of being black? Absolutely. Time and time again he said so in this emotional interview with Oprah Winfrey (jump to time 19.00), and here in a speech he made in the early 2000s (jump to time 5.48). Here is also a radio interview he had with Steve Harvey (jump to time 19.00) where the late singer said he's proud of his black heritage and honoured to be black.
While we may never know why the Press and the Media harassed and bullied MJ all through his life over the change in his skin colour, the truth in the public domain is that MJ was proud to be black, and sadly, was a victim of Vitiligo.