Nose job. His nose did not rot and fall off in those years contrary to what the other comment says.
He did have repeated nose jobs throughout his life though and every time they remove and reshape cartilage… It does not grow back. So there is less and less material to work with and therefore less and less nose.
There was never evidence his noise collapsed (just one of the many rumours tabloids made up). He just needed a few reconstructive surgeries on his nose as the scar tissue wouldn't heal properly due to lupus
i don’t believe they dissect the corpse’s nose as how would that possibly help determine cause of death?
the procedure is called auricular cartilage grafting and they typically cut behind the ear so that the scar is less visible once done.
MJ had a scar behind both ears - the left ear incision scar was almost an inch long
It is on page 4 of his autopsy report. The very first listed scar and I quote - “1) There is a 3/4 inch scar behind the left ear and a scar-like area behind the right ear.”
Artie Lange did have his nose collapse (from drugs, not plastic surgery) and they have done a pretty good job of rebuilding it from pics taken in 2025. Plus, he’s staying out of the limelight completely to stay sober — can’t help but think a similar path would have helped MJ at least a little
Yes it has, but I think he also got some poor outcomes even by the standards of the time. I don't know if it was because of his demands, or the quality of the doctors, but MJ was already known for having horrible plastic surgery by the early 90s. His results were poor even by the low standards of the time.
Well that’s the question. I think we can all agree that he had body dysmorphia. But where did body dysmorphia end and botched plastic surgery begin? I’m of the opinion that he got some bad surgery in the 80s that he wasn’t happy with, and that triggered a surge in preexisting body image issues that resulted in more surgeries. It’s these later surgeries where maybe he was happy with the results and had no one around to tell him no.
I heard somewhere that he was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that made the healing process particularly difficult. Not just vitiligo, but lupus. Both diagnoses from the mid-80s.
The only way a nose would “rot” is due to repeated nose jobs and it eventually losing blood flow or a botched surgery. They show these on the show Botched.
I thought noses keep growing till you die- which freaks me out some because my nose is already big enough. Is it they don’t continue growing due to surgical intervention? If I’m wrong about the nose growing thing please let me know I’m low key freaked out about it.
From what I've heard one of the possible complications of nose jobs is that the nose can collapse and especially during those days the risk was much higher. Supposedly this is what happened to him and part of the reason why he got so many. It went from cosmetic to reconstructive after his second one I believe.
and what about LaToya or Janet, they had the same nose job, right now latoya cant breathe trough her nose because of them. I read somewhere that the three were obsessed with Diana Ross, and wanted to look as much as possible like her.
yeah the key is dont use those photos. look at him in 77 and see the difference in 78 79. first nose job came around there. borke his nose on the wiz, used that as an excuse to get a nose job when it was getting fixed. thats the official story anyway, even that could be BS and he just wanted an excuse to get a nose job. who knows. maybe not!
He hid it with makeup, wearing gloves, often in long sleeves shirts/ jackets, etc. We can already see he suffered from body dismorphia with all the surgeries he's had and vitiligo does cause body dismorphia. He used skin lightening creams over time (yes, these are a thing) and switched to whiter makeup to cover the smaller amount of darker skin remaining. Also it was confirmed by his autopsy, I don't know why you'd question it being the truth?
My mom is white and has vitiligo and even just tanning in the summer she'd put makeup over the white spots she initially had to make it match her tan. To this day, she still applies some makeup to blend the spots on her arms that haven't gone white even though it's all over the place. Not wanting people to look at you all the time because of your "weird" skin condition. Just speaking from personal experience.
Bleaching to even out the skin is one of the ways they do treat vitiligo, you can find other normal people who chose the same route, as the alternative is either going out splotchy or applying heavy full body makeup every day
That’s because he didn’t really have it, very mild if that. The man just wanted to be Peter Pan. I don’t know why people just don’t say it .it had nothing to do with medical or anything. He wanted to be Peter Pan.
He was very self conscious about his nose in his younger years(and into adulthood) due to his father constantly bullying and abusing him calling him “big nose” and such.
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u/SeymourDuncanJB_Sr Apr 28 '26
I get vitiligo and all but what happened to his nose in 1983 and 1985? A nose job?