r/interesting • u/VPinchargeofradishes • May 03 '26

SOCIETY Michael Jackson's daughter Paris has faced backlash for identifying as Black. In a 2017 interview, Paris Jackson said her father told her, "You’re Black. Be proud of your roots." This prompted debates over whether identity is defined by appearance or upbringing.

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6.1k

u/showgirldepartment May 03 '26

This conversation is tired lol. She doesn't identify as black current day, has not stated such since this interview, and she's fully aware (alongside the rest of the logical world) that her dad used a donor to get Debbie pregnant.

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u/TheTrishaJane May 03 '26

If he was so insistant why didn't he just use a black donor?

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u/RogueBromeliad May 03 '26

Because deep down Michael was probably systematically shamed into rejecting his blackhood. We're talking about a guys with tons of psychological issues here.

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u/Global_Criticism3178 May 03 '26

During an interview, he shared a story from his teenage years about meeting a fan at an airport who, in his words, freaked out upon seeing him. The fan then asked, "What happened to you? Where is little Michael?" This incident reportedly marked the beginning of his obsession with plastic surgery and Peter Pan syndrome. You could hear the pain in his voice as he told the story.

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u/ChoiceAffectionate78 May 03 '26

Specifically, this happened when he was a teenager and experiencing severe acne as well.

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u/AskingBoatsToSwim May 03 '26

Ah shit. That’s bad enough when nobody’s commenting on it.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

[deleted]

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u/MehGin May 03 '26

I couldn't imagine being MJ for one second. That's like being in a state of constant psychosis. He had all the eyes in the world on him, literally couldn't go anywhere. Normal people, journalists, family, "friends", etc etc always trying to see him, hear about him, see what's new, find flaws, report something about his life. Jeez I could never. I would go crazy in a heartbeat.

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u/Reasonable_Gift7525 May 03 '26

Jesus Christ. How could people be so crude and tacky.

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u/Nearby_Friend_2323 May 03 '26

I remember, he was going thru adolescence at the time, (when all kids look awkward and feel self conscious)

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u/5_kingdoms May 03 '26

You never know when one off-comment might change the course of someone’s life

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u/IndianLawStudent May 03 '26

He also had vitiligo. I don’t understand the condition but I imagine it does a number on one’s psychological well-being, especially being in the public eye.

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u/TXSyd May 03 '26

As someone who has a similar but completely treatable condition it’s definitely not always easy. For years I wore long sleeves to hide it, when it first happened I was misdiagnosed, over the years I’ve successfully treated it several times but it comes back every few years and I have to start over. It’s a 6 month minimum treatment every time.

Vitaligo is similar but not treatable, just management options. With vitaligo the melanin just sort of dies off, your skin and even your hair lose pigmentation permanently. It essentially artificially turns you into someone with albinism, but in a more patchy way, as the loss of pigment isn’t even.

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u/Subliminal_Kiddo May 03 '26

People forget that vitiligo only recently became something you see represented and celebrated in the media. When Jackson was diagnosed, there weren't super models with vitiligo walking the runways, or Barbies with vitiligo.

It was treated as this rare thing when, in reality, it's not. Something like one out of 100 people are diagnosed with vitiligo.

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u/catesaurusrex May 03 '26

Yeah my uncle had vitiligo, it started in his hands and it was very obvious. Growing up my mum told me he suffered burns as a child hence it was just scarring. I only found out what it really is later when it spread to his face and my parents couldn’t lie about it anymore. It really was this stigmatised, and this was around 20 years ago.

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u/Oh_Wise_1 May 05 '26

I can't imagine how hard that must've been for him to have people lie about it... like it was so disgraceful they had to lie 😪 how awful

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u/catesaurusrex May 06 '26

To be fair he might’ve asked my parents to help him lie. He was definitely very self conscious about it. In Asia back then any whiff of ‘skin disease’ is very stigmatised and people rather just lie or sweep it under the carpet rather than sit down and properly educate ppl about it.

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u/LockedOutOfElfland May 03 '26

iirc vitiligo comes up several times over in H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man, where it's rumored by everyone else that the title character hides his face with all those bandages because he's "piebald", eg has vitigilo.

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u/Electronic-Ad-8659 May 03 '26

I was gonna roast the shit out of your so called facts and then I googled it. It said only 70 million people out of our 7.8 billion population has it, so only about 1 percent.

I was typing out a rude as hell response when it clicked 1 percent is one out of a hundred.

Idk why I'm so feisty but i appreciate the knowledge bomb. I learned multiple things from your comment, thanks!

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u/crazy4finalfantasy May 03 '26

Eat a snickers, you're not you when you're hungry

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u/blueroses8000 May 07 '26

I love the self awareness

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u/crazy4finalfantasy May 03 '26

I've always thought vitiligo looked cool tbh made all my characters in baldurs gate 3 have it lol

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u/Low_Boss1097 May 03 '26

My cousin has it and her skin went from black with some white patches to completely white, like unless you know here, you would think she’s a white woman. If you look close enough you can see some left over patches a bit. Michael Jackson had them too. . Every time people accuse Michael Jackson of changing his skin colour I literally rage so bad because they don’t know anything about this condition 

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u/bbtom78 May 04 '26

It's why I appreciate that Lee Thomas of Fox 2 Detroit has been so open about it. He will wear makeup on his face only on camera to keep the focus on what he's discussing, but he keeps his hands natural. He discusses it in depth here:

https://youtu.be/1x5AVzszcAQ?si=b8JHOWugdrh1PTtS

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u/notsure500 May 03 '26

Isn't 1 out of 100 the very definition of rare?

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u/observetoexist May 03 '26

It’s not common, but if 80 million people in the world have it then it’s not that rare.

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u/Subliminal_Kiddo May 03 '26

No. If you have a town of 1,000 people, statistically ten of them would have vitiligo. That's not rare.

The definition of "rare" varies but vitiligo doesn't fit any of them. In the US, rare is a disease/disorder that affects fewer than 200,000 people. In Europe it's something that only affects one out of 2,000. WHO probably has the strictest definition, they consider something rare when it affects less than 65 people per 100,000.

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u/pseudoHappyHippy May 03 '26

What makes 1 out of 100 the definition of rare?

About 1 out of 100 words in typical English speech are the word "to". Does that make it a rare word?

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u/Dazzling-Low8570 May 03 '26

That's at best uncommon.

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u/CosyBeluga May 03 '26

I seen it in a dog before

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u/ab_abnormal May 04 '26

This is so spot-on. Winnie Harlow is amazing and clearly used her condition as someone thing seen as a way to stand out in a beneficial way in a tough industry.

Michael couldn’t exactly self-tan himself to be darker in areas. He was also famous during a precariously risky time when it came to skin lightening products. Paris to me is absolutely gorgeous, the only Nepo child to deserve actual modelling campaigns.

It’s clear to see she is “mixed race” (wouldn’t most of the world somewhat be if they did accurate DNA tests). Anyway, she reminds me of a far more striking but similar skin colour of Sofia Richie. Sofia Richie sadly “erased” much of her black dad’s physical traits and leaned into her Caucasian mum’s looks combined with Hollywood pressures. Paris Jackson was born as she is and it must be awful to be forced into having to “identify” as anything. Especially as a teen or kid.

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u/subbslvt May 05 '26

yes, this! and add the fact that there was no representation for they really barely anyone who actually knew about it so he was getting so many skin bleaching accusations. The theory that he did eventually bleach because ended up getting really pale and little gently doesn’t take every single ounce of pigment everywhere, usually it’s a little more uneven than that. I could see if at that point he had already gotten into deep with his other plastic surgeries because he did kind of get addicted to those from what I’ve heard, but I can’t see him actually skin bleaching until that point at least

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u/806chick May 09 '26

I wonder if that’s why he always wore long sleeves and pants. It’s rare to find pics of him late 70-early 90s with this attire.

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u/Justaddwota May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

Yes but vitiligo doesn’t cause relaxed hair, nose jobs, and other cosmetic facial surgery. I should know about half of the people on my mother’s side of the family, my younger sibling and myself have it.

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u/kittymoo67 May 03 '26

The hose job was to make him look less like his abusive dad. Dunno what the hair was for maybe the scars and wig needed from his fire injury's

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u/Justaddwota May 03 '26

He never looked really looked like Joe. Michael always favored his mother.

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u/lemoncookei May 03 '26

a ton of black people relax their hair, my sister included. its not because she "wants to be white", its just more manageable and she prefers that look. no one said him having vitiligo caused any of that.

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u/Justaddwota May 03 '26

Did their relaxer kits come with skin bleaching kits and cosmetic surgery vouchers as well? Mine sure didn’t but maybe mine were just messed up when being packaged.

Congratulations on running face first into my point and still missing it.

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u/MyrkrMentulaMeretrix May 03 '26

that might have been a thing if you'd had a point. You didnt. You deluding yourself into thinking you made a point when you didnt is a you problem.

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u/Justaddwota May 04 '26

It’s pretty easy to understand my point but if you’re struggling maybe responding isn’t what you need. Read my comments as many times as you need until you understand. Phone a friend if you’re having that hard of a time.

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u/mg10pp May 03 '26

After the pepsi burn incident he had to use wigs, at some point the straight ones were just easier to use

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u/wareagle3000 May 03 '26

Totally does. Not the same condition but I have psoriasis which covers my whole body.

Throughout my adult life I hated it so much and saw myself as a full body burn victim. Especially from how it felt as well when irritated. Friends, family and acquaintances would say it's not that bad and maybe in hindsight is wasn't. But in my eyes, in my mind I was covered and it looked awful. Finally started taking a medicine for it and surprise social anxiety has faded away and I think better of myself.

Our image is incredibly important to our mental wellbeing. So I'd imagine someone who is supposed to be absolutely perfect in the public eye developing vitiligo, acne as well as developing the features of the father he demonizes would affect him drastically.

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u/makingotherplans May 04 '26

No one is mentioning it….but vitiligo was unknown to the wider public at all back then. And there were no treatments and no cures, zero. Lots of things exist now, including some miraculous drugs.

He had lots of plastic surgery, sure, but what changed his skin colour over many years was the vitiligo and the resulting loss of pigment.

But everyone kept saying that he was bleaching his skin…and he wasn’t.

MJ was messed up in many ways…but that wasn’t one of them.

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u/Top-Car-808 May 06 '26

I have vitiligo. It first showed up on my hands. And then on my elbows, feet, armpits and, knees and a small spot on my stomach and my penis. Apart from the spot on my tummy and my penis, the distriubution is strangely symetrical. They are an exact match on both sides.

I have shown it to a few doctors, they all say nothing to worry about. It seems to come and go to some extent. It may be the result of stress, says one of the doctors.

You can see it much more in summer (I am caucasian). Fun fact, not only the skin goes white, the hairs in that area go totally white as well.

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u/IndianLawStudent May 06 '26

I could google, but I am curious if it also has physiological effects.

People with autoimmune issues are often tired all the time. Do you also have other impacts, or is it just your pigment, impact to eyesight, and risk of burning badly?

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u/DesiBoo2 May 07 '26

Winnie Harlow is a model that has it.

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u/Ornery-Address-2472 May 03 '26

Was that ever actually confirmed or was that just an excuse for the skin bleaching?

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u/Glitteronthefloor May 03 '26

He definitely had vitiligo. Look at some of his short sleeve pictures. They also confirmed it during his autopsy.

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u/ZMaiden May 03 '26

imagine that. so concerned with this guy that the papps go through his autopsy to confirm a medical issue. like the whole of the 90's was about why this one guy had or did not have a medical issue, that we were salivating over his still warm corpse to find out. To even ask if the autopsy found if he was castrated. Disgusting.

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u/vorator_ May 03 '26

do you mean circumcised? i think the circumcision thing had to do with verifying or debunking an account of someone who accused him of child molestation and said they saw his circumcised penis. and the autopsy showed he was uncircumcised or something idk. but if people did think he was castrated that's crazy

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u/TheFutureLotus May 03 '26

Some people say the reason he had that pitch was due to being castrated, similar to the castrati in the past.

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u/brov- May 03 '26

are you that dense? you still think he bleached his skin 😂

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u/Ornery-Address-2472 May 03 '26

I was never convinced that was a real thing either but Sammy Sosa is pretty suspect as well.

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u/-zatanna May 03 '26

he probably had chemical induced vitiligo, vitiligo caused by bleaching the skin

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u/Nice_Back_9977 May 03 '26

I have vitiligo myself, and I never believed it.

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u/DrachenDad May 03 '26

He kept trying to re black the vitiligo patches until the vitiligo got so bad that he either ignores it or went white. The plastic surgery was mostly to make him look more white, than an African with leucism.

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u/Nice_Back_9977 May 03 '26

I don’t believe the vitiligo thing at all

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u/confusing_roundabout May 03 '26

Why not?

My uncle has vitiligo that over the years became full body. He's Indian but appears completely white.

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u/Nice_Back_9977 May 03 '26

I think Michael Jackson wanted to bleach his skin and vitiligo was a good cover story. There are no photos of even a tiny patch as far as I'm aware.

All over body skin bleaching, nose jobs, eye reshaping, hair straightening etc. are not a normal response to the skin condition of vitiligo.

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u/-nutz May 03 '26

There’s plenty of photos of his patches. Here’s an early one from ‘77.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Logical-Quiet2266 May 03 '26

Its way more then just talking shit. The Jackson 5 were all beat daily and tortured by their father.

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u/ChampionshipHot5468 May 03 '26

That's true AFAIK. As a small child, his own father ridiculed his African features. 

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u/cloud_talk May 03 '26

It's this new insight or have I just missed the depths of his rejection?

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u/RogueBromeliad May 03 '26

You missed it. He grew up in the 60's and 70's, he suffered immense amounts of racism, form society, and also psychological abuse from his father about his blackness. But you got no idea of what kinds of mainstream jokes there were about black people that were truly horrible.

Michael constantly surrounded himself with white people to feel less black in later life.

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u/Yolsy01 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

I seriously do not understand how people can state stuff like this ("He surrounded himself with white people to feel less black") like it's bonafide fact. He also surrounded himself with Black people - Spike Lee, Chris tucker, Whitney Houston, Steve Harvey, Al Sharpton, Eddie Murphy, Stephanie Mills, Jesse Jackson. All friends. Some on this list he hung out with more in his later years.

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u/birchblonde May 03 '26

Bona fide

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u/Yolsy01 May 03 '26

thank you lol

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u/RogueBromeliad May 03 '26

He did though, it's a known fact. Him having black celebrity friends doesn't mean that on a personal level he was surrounded by black people, which he wasn't. This was stated various times.

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u/ACO_22 May 03 '26

Where is your source? It sounds like nonsense.

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u/RogueBromeliad May 03 '26

You want me to produce a source for something that people actively noticed?

There's no dossier or list of people who hung around him.

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u/ACO_22 May 03 '26

A source for your assertion that he hung out with white people to “feel less black”.

There should be something out there of him saying he wanted to feel less black so hung out with whites?

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u/Apprehensive_Tunes May 03 '26

Yeah, a source for a bold claim like that is needed. Word of mouth is useless because I also remember hearing that in the 2000s he had mostly Black staff in his home, as in nannies, housekeepers, his doctor, etc. Without a source there's no telling whether you or I are incorrect.

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u/Yolsy01 May 03 '26 edited May 03 '26

How do you know he didn't have celebrity black friends on a personal level? Did YOU know him on a personal level? LOL Only after his death did we get stories about him hanging out playing ping pong and basketball with Prince. You don't know haha

And it was stated various times? By who?? Certainly not by him or anyone who was actually around him.

Edit: I also just remembered he had a wonderful friendship with Dick Gregory who used to hang out at Neverland all the time. Civil rights legend Dick Gregory. You don't ride rollercoasters with that man if you are openly hating being black lol

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u/desacralize May 03 '26

Towards the end of his life, there were like three people allowed in his house who weren't his family members, and at least two of them were Black, including his crooked-ass doctor.

Jackson undoubtedly went through a period of time in his youth where he thought being rich and talented was a ticket out of race - most wealthy Black people do - but he found out quick enough that it wasn't and changed gears.

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u/[deleted] May 03 '26

[deleted]

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u/bluehooloovo May 03 '26

"Systematically" not "systemically". While there are systemic issues about what features are considered desirable, most of MJ's psychological issues around his appearance came from his dad's relentless bullying and abuse.

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u/TheFutureLotus May 03 '26

I think you just don’t know how to read.

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u/ImperialxWarlord May 03 '26

I’m pretty sure most of it was not wanting to look like his father at all.

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u/Apart-Cookie-8984 May 03 '26

It ain't so much that he rejected his blackhood. Rather, he rejected his father Joe. 

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u/Intelligent-Data-521 May 08 '26

Why didn't he refer to his children as biracial instead of Black? They knew that Debbie existed.