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  • 2002-11-17 (xsd:date)
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  • Is This a Real Photograph of Michael Jackson? (en)
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  • If there was anything more remarkable about Michael Jackson than his transformation from a singing and dancing wunderkind fronting the Jackson 5 into the world's most popular entertainer (his 1982 Thriller album remains one of the two best-selling albums of all time), it was his metamorphosis from a dark-skinned, broad-nosed, Afro-haired adolescent into a pasty, slender-nosed, long-haired, dimpled adult whose chiseled facial features have long since crossed the boundary of the grotesque. So unreal had his physical appearance become that many people questioned whether genuine photographs of him (such as the one shown above, taken during Jackson's 13 November 2002 appearance in Santa Maria Superior Court) had been doctored, amidst rumors that multiple cosmetic surgeries had taken such a toll on his face that he was sporting a prosthetic nose: What's up with Michael Jackson's nose? rumors floated anew when he showed up to testify as a defendant in a breach of contract case in Santa Maria with a swollen face, a seemingly scarred and discolored nose, and an upper lip that appeared to be covered with scabs. Press photos made it appear that the pop star's face bore a pointed, collapsed proboscis, and within the next few days several prominent plastic surgeons assessed the possible causes of the unusual appearance of Jackson's nose for the press: Dermatologists also suggested that Jackson had probably undergone Botox injections in his forehead, had plastic surgery on his eyes, had his chin squared off, lightened his skin using a hydroquinone compound (not legal in the U.S.), and had tattooed eyebrows and eyeliner. Unfortunately, as Dr. Edward Domanskis, a Newport Beach plastic surgeon, said, drawing a line with some cosmetic surgery patients is particularly difficult: Jackson testified for three days. The first day he appeared in court wearing a surgical mask which the judge ordered him to remove, revealing a bandage over his nose. The second day Jackson showed up without the mask, but he had switched to a skin-colored bandage. On the third day the singer testified wearing neither mask nor bandage. Viewers who did not look closely at the photographs taken the second day (such as the one shown above) and failed to realize Jackson was wearing bandage matching the color of his skin might have concluded that the wrinkled, irregular surface of his nose and the fleshy substance dangling from it were his natural appearance, rather than the texture of the bandage covering it. Possibly some of the surgeons who commented on the state of Jackson's nose were similarly misled by these pictures. On 25 June 2009, Michael Jackson died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Los Angeles. (en)
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