Michael Jackson was an American entertainer who spent over four decades in the public eye, first as a child star with the Jackson 5 and later as a solo artist. From the mid-1980s, Jackson's appearance began to change dramatically. The changes to his face triggered widespread speculation of extensive cosmetic surgery, and his skin tone became much lighter.

Jackson was diagnosed with the skin disorder vitiligo, which results in white patches on the skin and sensitivity to sunlight. To treat the condition, he used fair-colored makeup and skin-lightening prescription creams to cover up the uneven blotches of color caused by the illness. The creams would have further lightened his skin. The lighter skin resulted in criticism that he was trying to appear white. Jackson said he had not purposely bleached his skin and that he was not trying to be anything he was not.

Jackson and some of his siblings said they had been physically and psychologically abused by their father Joe Jackson. In 2003, Joe admitted to whipping them as children, but he emphatically rejected the longstanding abuse allegations. The whippings deeply traumatized Jackson and may have led to the onset of further health problems later in his life. Physicians speculated that he had body dysmorphic disorder.

At some point during the 1990s, it appeared that Jackson had become dependent on prescription drugs, mainly painkillers and strong sedatives. The drug use was later linked to second- and third-degree burns he had suffered years before. Jackson gradually became dependent on these drugs, and his health deteriorated. He went into rehabilitation in 1993. While preparing for a series of comeback concerts scheduled to begin in July 2009, Jackson died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication after suffering cardiac arrest on June 25, 2009. Conrad Murray, his personal physician, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in his death and sentenced to four years in prison.

Jackson's skin had been medium-brown during his youth, but from the mid-1980s gradually grew paler. The change drew widespread media coverage, including speculation that he had been bleaching his skin. Jackson's dermatologist, Arnold Klein, said he observed in 1983 that Jackson had vitiligo, a condition characterized by patches of the skin losing their pigment. He also identified discoid lupus erythematosus in Jackson. He diagnosed Jackson with lupus that year, and with vitiligo in 1986.

Vitiligo's drastic effects on the body can cause psychological distress. Jackson used fair-colored makeup, and possibly skin-bleaching prescription creams, to cover up the uneven blotches of color caused by the illness. The creams would have further lightened his skin, and, with the application of makeup, he could appear very pale. The cause of vitiligo is unknown, but it is believed to be due to genetic susceptibility triggered by an environmental factor such that an autoimmune disease occurs. When Jackson was diagnosed with vitiligo in the mid-1980s, he started to learn more about the disease. He would often call his dermatologist's nurse and future wife Debbie Rowe to get medical information as well as emotional support.

Jackson's physical changes gained widespread media coverage and provoked criticism from the public. Some African-American psychologists argued Jackson was "a lousy role model for black youth": A member of the Association of Black Psychologists, Dennis Chestnut, said Jackson had given "black youth a feeling that they can achieve," but might encourage them to believe they had to be esoteric and idiosyncratic to be successful, while Halford Fairchild, another member of the aforementioned organization, said Jackson and other African-American celebrities would try "to look more like white people in order to get in films and on television." Jackson also was confronted with the reaction of the people around him. Filmmaker John Landis, who directed two music videos for Jackson, said when Jackson showed him his bleached chest, Landis told him the doctor who had done it was a criminal.

However, in 1993, Jackson said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, "there, as I know of, there is no such thing as skin bleaching. I've never seen it, I don't know what it is. [...] I have a skin disorder [vitiligo] that destroys the pigmentation of the skin, it's something that I cannot help, ok? But, when people make up stories that I don't want to be who I am, it hurts me. [...] But what about all the millions of people, let's reverse it, what about all the millions of people who sit out in the sun to become darker, to become other than what they are? Nobody says nothing about that." Jackson suggested that his skin tone began to change "sometime after Thriller," that his condition was hereditary and admitted to using makeup to even his skin tone; "we're trying to control it, and using makeup evens it out because it makes blotches on the skin. I have to even out my skin." Winfrey's interview with Jackson was watched by an average of 62 million viewers at any given moment. It also started a public discourse on the topic of vitiligo, then a relatively unknown condition.