Vitiligo / Michael's Skin Condition

On February 10, 1993, Michael Jackson gave the world an explanation for the whiteness of his skin in an exclusive interview he did with Oprah Winfrey. Since Michael has stated he has this skin disorder many people have heard of it, but not many people really understand what it is, so that casts doubt on Michael when he says he suffers from it. Michael has and shows all the symptoms of a person with this disease. So you first have to understand what this disease is.

What is Vitiligo?
Vitiligo is a relatively common skin disorder, in which white spots or patches appear on the skin. These spots are caused by destruction or weakening of the pigment cells in those areas, resulting in the pigment being destroyed or no longer produced. In most cases, vitiligo is believed to be an autoimmune-related disorder. Although researchers are not exactly sure what causes the autoimmune response, more is being learned every year. In vitiligo, only the color of the skin is affected. The texture and other skin qualities remain normal.

What are the symptoms of Vitiligo?
People who develop vitiligo usually first notice white patches or spots (depigmentation) on their skin. The skin remains of normal texture, and there is usually no itching or other symptoms. These patches are more obvious in sun-exposed areas, including the hands, feet, arms, legs, face, and lips. Other common areas for white patches to appear are the armpits and groin and around the mouth, eyes, nostrils, navel, and genitals. Vitiligo generally appears in one of three patterns. In one pattern (focal pattern), the depigmentation is limited to one or only a few areas. Some people develop depigmented patches on only one side of their bodies (segmental vitiligo). But for most people who have vitiligo, depigmentation occurs on different parts of the body (generalized vitiligo), often similar on each side of the body. In addition to white patches on the skin, some people with vitiligo may experience white hair growing in on the scalp, eyelashes, eyebrows, and beard. In extremely rare cases, vitiligo can affect eye color or the pigment of the retina.

Does genetics play a role?
Most people with vitiligo have neither parents, nor children, nor siblings with vitiligo. Many have no other relatives with vitiligo. Vitiligo does appear to be hereditary, that is, it can run in families. Children whose parents have the disorder are more likely to develop vitiligo. There is no question about that. However, most children will not get vitiligo even if a parent has it, and most people with vitiligo do not have a family history of the disorder. So the chances of your child developing vitiligo appear to be very small. Nevertheless, there are sufficient numbers of families where vitiligo does appear among siblings, parents and children, such that we can assume a genetic factor.

How does Vitiligo Develop?
The beginning of Vitiligo and the severity of pigment loss differs with each patient. Light skinned people usually notice the pigment loss during the summer as the contrast between the vitiliginous skin and the suntanned skin becomes distinct. People with dark skin may observe the onset of Vitiligo at any time. Individuals who have severe cases will lose pigment over their entire body surface. There is no way to predict how much pigment an individual will lose, Illness and stress can result in more pigment loss. The degree of pigment loss can also vary within each Vitiligo patch, and a border of abnormally dark skin may encircle a patch of depigmented skin.

Vitiligo frequently begins with a rapid loss of pigment which may be followed by a lengthy period when the skin color does not change. Later, the pigment loss may resume � perhaps after the individual has suffered physical trauma or stress. The loss of color may continue until, for unknown reasons, the process stops. Cycles of pigment loss, followed by periods of stability may continue indefinitely. It is rare for a patient with Vitiligo to repigment or regain skin color spontaneously. Most patients who say that they no longer have Vitiligo may actually have become depigmented and are no longer bothered by contrasting skin color. While such patients appear to be "cured", they really are not. People who have Vitiligo all over their bodies do not look like albinos because the color of their hair may not change � or it can be dyed � and eye color does not change.

Emotional Impact
Most individuals with Vitiligo are upset because of the uneven skin color. It is difficult for those who do not have Vitiligo to appreciate the significance of this problem to the victim.

Depigmentation Therapy
If a person has Vitiligo over more than half of the exposed areas of the body, he or she is not a candidate for repigmentation. Rather, such a person may want to try depigmentation of the remaining pigmented skin. The drug for depigmentation is monobenzylether of hydroquinone. Many patients with Vitiligo are at first apprehensive about the idea of depigmentation and reluctant to go ahead. However, patients who achieve complete depigmentation are usually satisfied with the end results. Some people become allergic to the medication and must discontinue therapy. This therapy takes about a year to complete. The pigment removal is permanent.

Sensitivity to the sun
Patches of vitiligo skin have no natural protection against the sun's rays. This is because vitiligo skin is white as the melanocytes which produce melanin (skin pigment) are not active. The effect of the sun is normally to increase melanin production and to turn the skin brown; this is a protective mechanism to prevent the skin from being damaged by burning.

Therefore, the most important reason for protecting your skin is to prevent sunburn. Not only is this painful, but damage to the skin, including sunburn, can stimulate the vitiligo to spread in some people.

As vitiligo skin is particularly vulnerable to sunlight and needs protection, some brands of sunblock are classified by the NHS (The British National Health Service) as borderline substances which means they can be obtained on prescription from your doctor.

Michael says he was first diagnosed at the earliest, during the time he released his 'Off the Wall' album. We can assume that maybe it started before he actually released the album in stores, which was in the mid 70s. Treatments were still being developed and the awareness of the disease was not there. So naturally, the only solution for Michael then was to cover it up using cosmetics. I've heard people ask 'So why didn't he try to regain his color' making it seem as if he was desperate to just depigment his skin of its natural color. Michael covered it with darker makeup I'm sure, for as long as he could.

If you look at the pictures, you will see that his face is obviously covered with cosmetics. The unevenness of it is there. So you can see that when it did start, he did try concealing it, obviously no one knew about it until he was visibly a shade lighter. Click on the second picture to get a better look. Compare Emmanuel (the little one)  to Michael, you'll see that he's probably wearing heavy facial makeup.

As you've read the process of this disease can be gradual and slow. As time goes on, his skin color becomes even more uneven, and his cheeks begin to always seem to have a red tint to them. (Due to Discoid Lupus) You'll see it all over his face and even his neck. Same with the lip color, it started as a way to conceal the discoloration on his lips, if you'll notice the discoloration on the outline of the lips in the first picture, and some discoloration on his nose in others. Michael's makeup artist for over 20 years, Karen Faye comments:

"It started happening relatively early, he even was trying to hide it from me..he tried to hide it for quite awhile. He'd always try to cover it with makeup and even out his skin tone until it got so extensive. It's all over his body. We were always trying to hide it and cover it for the longest time until he just had to tell Oprah and tell the world,  'Listen I'm not trying to be white, I have a skin disease.' In the beginning I tried to cover the light spots to match the darker part of his skin, but then it became so extensive that we had to go with the lighter part of his skin because his whole body was reacting...he'd have to be in complete full body makeup, every inch of his body. So it was easier to make the transition to him being to the lighter shade that he is."

No one can deny, after looking at these pictures, the fact that during this period of time, around the time of his Thriller release, Michael's face was seriously uneven in color. When you bleach your skin, you apply the bleaching agent evenly, it would not create spotting. These pictures are just some of the many pictures that show evidence of uneven skin. Initially, Michael's skin was very even as you will see in the comparison below.

Click picture to enlarge

Moving on, how many times have you seen Michael Jackson revealing his arms and legs? Rarely. Take his tour costumes for example. If you compare their Victory Tour to the Triumph Tour, you'll see the difference in what he wore. 

There were times even then that Michael would show his chest or arms, perhaps these were areas that hadn't been affected at the time. You will see him appear in some of his later videos revealing these areas, this is possible because of makeup, or they were during times when his skin was even.  When we see pictures of Michael now, he is almost always covered from head to toe, it is very rare that you will see any candid picture of Michael when he's not performing or shooting some kind of video, where any part of his body, besides his head and hands are exposed. Most of all of his infamous outfits are made to cover his entire body. There probably is a reason for that.

Time goes on and Michael gets lighter and lighter until he is eventually just literally WHITE, at least in comparison to other people. Had he been bleaching his skin from the start, Michael would never have been spotting.  Michael went through depigmentation therapy, which is what someone might opt to do when the discolorations have covered most of the body and the use of makeup to hide the difference in color becomes an inconvenience. That's why you will notice during around 1986 Michael was lighter, but not as white as he appears now.  In Michael's case, since he was always in the public eye, constantly being photographed, it would be quite embarrassing to show up to events and perform while your skin is spotted with  two different colors. Katherine Jackson, Michael's mother tells us: 

"His face is white because he has had this disease, and instead of having it spotted like a cow or something like that he just decided to just do the whole thing, because he could afford to do it."

Covering it up with makeup was only effective for awhile. As it gets worse, you have to apply more, as his make up artist stated, wearing full bodied makeup would be very hard. The depigmentation process takes awhile to complete and it is permanent. The medication monobenzylether of hydroquinone is used to do this and  is very strong, it is typically only prescribed to vitiligo patients. People that bleach their skin to remove scars and minor discolorations use creams with only  hydroquinone, which is reversible and not permanent. This is why when you buy bleaching creams at the store, it will always tell you that the pigmentation you wanted to get rid of may reappear.

I have yet to see or hear about anyone else that has gone through a drastic change in skin color by just bleaching their skin with regular products. I know of people bleaching their skin, but if you pay them any real attention you will notice the inconsistencies, they get darker then they get lighter again, this because of what was mentioned before, hydroquinone is not permanent. Also, getting your hands on monobenzylether of hydroquinone is not easy. So I don't want to hear the excuse that he just somehow got his hands on it. You have to be prescribed something like that from a dermatologist. Like I've said before, people that bleach their skin do not spot. People with vitiligo have gotten to the point where their pigment has been totally stripped from all of the their body, they are typically snow white in color. Michael Jackson is very pale, even in comparison to white people. The only cases of such a drastic change in skin color that I've seen or read about are with vitiligo patients.

People with vitiligo become very sensitive to the sun, because the natural protection that your skin has from the sun gets stripped away along with the pigmentation. If you go through depigmentation therapy the sensitivity of your skin to the sun becomes even worse. This is why when Michael is outside, most of the time you will see him shielding himself from the sun with either his hand or an umbrella. A lot of people don't understand why he is with an umbrella all the time, this is the only reason. 

Even now you will see brown spots on various parts of Michael's body, his arms and hands for example. Sometimes they are there and then sometimes they aren't, which can be due to makeup or spontaneous repigmentation as mentioned before. 

Michael Jackson has vitiligo and that is the truth. People have used all kinds of things to dispute this, whether it be the ethnicity of the women he's dated or the plastic surgery he's gotten. It's become a situation where he's been forced to defend the fact that he is an African American, the fact that he's not ashamed of who and what he is. Michael grew up idolizing black musicians, he did all the 'black' trends. From the music, to the hair styles and such. Michael had his greatest success when he was still visibly black..there was and is no reason for him to have desired to change his color. This is something that his family has backed him on for many years, even by his stern father who would probably never defend any of his children, had they ever bleached their skin. It has been said by Michael and by his sister Janet Jackson,  that he isn't the only one in the family to have it. This doesn't mean that his sisters or brothers have to have it, it could have been a distant relative. Did you know that stress or traumatic events could trigger vitiligo if you are already susceptible to it genetically? Michael had it the hardest growing up, and even after he reached fame, who's to say all of that didn't trigger it?

Most of the people that suffer from this disease have a hard time with people either not believing them about their condition or just people giving them a hard time about it, especially when they are African American. It can be a very hard thing to deal with, could you imagine someone harassing you about something that you can't help?

(Sources: National Vitiligo Foundation, Vitiligo Support)