Not vanity but memories of abuse are the real reason Michael Jackson bleached his skin

Michael Jackson after he got his skin bleached. Picture courtesy

The late Thriller hitmaker, who lightened his skin and underwent a number of face reconstructions in a bid to look like a "northern athlete", is believed to have undergone the transformations to try to escape the traumatic recollections of his childhood and the constant reminders of Joe Jackson, who tormented him for his African American facial features, and to distance himself from his parentage.

Michael's physician Dr Conrad Murray revealed the reason behind the late singer's cosmetic surgery and said, "In the book we talked about him running away from his memory. I used the word morphological changing and basically of course he was morphing himself; it doesn't matter that his skin was bleached or whether his structural face is good or whether his nose it like a northern athlete. That may have been a mixture of things."

He said, 'You know I've been watching you for a long time'. I didn't like that, you know, why are you watching me? And then he said, 'I have been watching you for a long time and I am convinced you are the one, when my children are sick they call you Dr Conrad. They ask for Dr Conrad. 'They know, I know, we know, we love you. We want you to be with us.'"