9.He Really Did Have Vitiligo
Throughout his youth, Michael Jackson had a medium-brown, African-American complexion, but in the 1980s, his skin lightened considerably. Questioned, Michael claimed that he had a condition called “vitiligo.” Years later, his autopsy report confirmed the claim.
Vitiligo is a vanishingly rare skin disorder that causes melanin-producing cells to malfunction and fail. The precise cause is unknown, but it is tied to the autoimmune system. Vitiligo does not operate in a uniform fashion. It manifests in splotches that tend to continually grow and change shape. Jackson bleached his skin with a cream called Porcelana, but we don’t know whether the bleaching was an attempt to even out the patches or whether the bleaching itself sparked the vitiligo.
Michael was very close with his dermatologist, Dr. Arnold Klein. He even married his nurse, Debbie Rowe, who went on to have Michael’s children, Michael jr. and Paris. The couple divorced in 1999. Rowe recently announced her engagement to Jackson’s friend, gay porn producer Marc Schaffel.
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