The guy spends a fortune getting plastic surgery to make his nose look caucasian, thinks (or pretends) his caucasian children are his own, and just happens to get a disease that turns him white? Oh, and by the way a variant of it that makes him a nice uniform light color when it’s finished running its course. Oh, and by the way, a variant that sort of progressively lightens the same areas over the years…or at least a variant that lets him get “treated” with bleaching to even it out gradually.
Sure…mmmm hmmmm…sure.
Believing he had vitiligo as the cause of him turning so uniformly pale is right up there with the folks who apparently believed those kids were fathered by him. I remember bursting out laughing when Michael explained to that Bashir guy how the masses were totally confused about color inheritence, and how it was quite ordinary for parents of any color to have children who are any other color. (I have no idea what Mr Jackson himself personally believed about fathering the younger Prince Michael, so for all I know he was actually being sincere.)
But there’s a point at which the gullibility of the polloi strains my credulity.
I figured that he had vitiligo, and then lightened his skin to match the light patches. That way, he wouldn’t be as splotchy. Why does that take an incredible amount of gullibility to believe? It seems perfectly logical. Do you think he’s want to look like that guy in the picture in this thread where he’s black and white all over his face? Maybe he did want to be caucasian or maybe he was under some sort of delusion that he was turning caucasian and wanted to complete the process. But I could see where someone with vitiligo would attempt to even out the color if possible. I don’t think that requires some crazy thought process to believe.
Wikipedia describes it as a “a relatively common chronic disorder” (1-2% of population (!)) and that high levels of psychological stress (e.g. fame, loss of childhood, lack of privacy, Joe Jackson) can make individuals “more susceptible to vitiligo.” Given that, it may not be that odd.
One of my bosses had vertaligo. He was a man with light brown skin and it was bad on him. I can’t imagine what it would look on someone who was much darker. And I know that he found it extremely vexing.
Yes they did. I remember wondering at the time if that could be used as evidence in his conviction. However, before that time he had already mentioned he had vitiligo, so I remember thinking that it wouldn’t be a big stretch for an accuser to gamble on that. Not that I’m trying to defend him; I’ve always been fairly agnostic about everything I hear regarding MJ, but I don’t think this is damning evidence.
I figure he had light patches from early bleaching efforts and kept bleaching til they smoothed out.
But of course it’s perfectly logical that he had breathing problems requiring nose reconstruction, albino children with only their mothers’ physical characteristics, and an unusual variant of vitiligo to boot. Perfectly logical.
I’m also confident his various drug exposures were equally medically appropriate and have perfectly logical explanations. :dubious:
With enough money and spinmeisters, just because something is walking and quacking like a duck doesn’t mean there isn’t a perfectly logical explanation of why it’s not actually a penguin.
I wonder if the vitiligo started first, and with his mental state as it was, he decided he should become more “white” looking and that drove the crazy plastic surgeries etc. Evidence suggests that the disease started well before the insane plastic surgeries. (I know this is GQ, but it seems like people are posting speculation).
Of course he had vitiligo. I don’t understand how people on this board who claim to fight ignorance can continue to be so swayed by the tabloids on this issue. For those saying how completely even his skin tone is, you are actually only commenting on his face and hands, as the rest of his body was always covered up.
Here’s a good link explaining more. The bottom of the article has links, including a rare view of his depigmented body.
The photos in the links given above seem to indicate that he indeed had vitigilo. Those of you who are just spouting your personal opinions should pay attention to those photos.
But those photos were probably put out by Michael Jackson to promote the idea he had vitiligo. In fact, they were probably Photoshopped.
Oh wait, that’s what all the detractors are going to say.
I went to public school here in New Orleans. I also teach in a public school. I have therefore seen hundreds of african american children and people. I had seen and known about vitiligo before it was reported that Michael Jackson had it. I was not shocked by that possibility when it came out. His children and plastic surgery are separate issues from the vitiligo. The pictures linked to above show his splotchy skin on his wrists and arms.
One summer I worked in a bistro and one of the guys int he kitchen was quite depigmented by vitiligo. His mother did just that with make-up when he had portraits taken when he was younger. They covered the light patches until the light-to-dark ratio went so far the other way, it simply made more sense to tackle the remaining dark patches.
Initially when I met him, I thought he might be an albino African-Candian who had died his hair and thick, bushy eyebrows dark. His arms were much more splotchy, but he generally wore long sleeves and had gloves to handle food, so it was quite a while before I noticed he had patches of pigment . At the time I had never heard of vitiligo and thought it was still related to albinism. He originally had very dark skin, developed patches and eventually lost most of the pigment from his face, neck, hands and a significant amount of his torso (I never saw his torso, personally).
We were chatting one and he said when he was young, his mother would put dark pancake make-up on his face for school photo day. As he got older and got lighter and lighter, it became ridiculous to continue using dark make-up when his face was overwhelmingly white, so they started covering the remaining dark areas with caucasian hues of pancake. The result was an eighth grade photo of a black boy and a ninth grade photo of a white boy with an afro. To be honest, I saw the eighth grade photo and it really looked like make-up. If not for his features, it would have looked like blackface.
At the time I knew him, he didn’t particularly care enough to bother covering up, but he continued to wear long sleeves at work only because at a previous job where the kitchen was open concept, a couple customers complained because they thought he had leprosy.
Michael Jackson was undeniably weird, but I have no problem at all believing the logical and quite plausible vitiligo explanation for his palor. I believe Latoya Jackson has also gone on record saying she has vitiligo as well, but not the the same extend as Michael.
Precisely. But even if it was infectious, it would be quite absurd. I would be conceptually on par with: “I would like to lose weight. Hey, I hear there’s some kind of ‘wasting disease’! I should look into that!”
Anyway, I have to log off. I’ve noticed I’m getting quite the farmer’s tan, so I’m going to go and see if a bout with albinism will even it out. How do you catch albino pox anyway?
I really hate having debates in GQ. And whatever happened to the rule of debates that, unless you have evidence to the contrary, you take someone at their word? Or at least assuming stupidity before malefocense?
Anyways, if we are seriously going to debate this, shouldn’t we be using cites, instead of IMHOs? At least let’s make an argument better than “Jackson has lied to us before, [which also needs a cite] therefore he was lying about having a skin disorder.”
Absolutely it affects different people differently. Some people only have one or two small white spots. In other case it can almost completely eradicate skin pigment on a person. Here is an example.
I think it’s possible MJ really did have extensive vitiligo. I am not 100% convinced of it, but apparently there is some evidence that gives the claim weight. Even if there were a lot of lies and deceptions regarding MJ that doesn’t mean everything he claimed was untrue.
