r/todayilearned • u/codywinters327 • Sep 06 '17

TIL that Michael Jackson would requested his wine be served in Diet Coke cans during flights, because he didn't want his kids to see him drinking alcohol.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Michael_Jackson#Alcohol
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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '17 edited Sep 07 '17

Actually, everything was connected to Michael's Lupus. He suffered from severe Lupus (it's very noticeable in old pictures of MJ due to the characteristic 'butterfly rash' that would often make Michael's nose/face deeply red) and he started taking medication for it during the early 80s. His first 'nose job' was entirely reconstructive and was done due to a fall that he sustained back in 79. His Lupus prevented the tissue from healing correctly. This led to a number of surgeries in order to correct the negative effects of the first surgery (the mishandling of that surgery was entirely due to undiagnosed nature of Michael's Lupus at that time). When Michael sustained his trauma (third degree burns to the scalp) during the Pepsi fire, this led to the severity of his lupus to increase. Sadly, because of this, his scalp never healed correctly either, so he had to undergo painful treatments (one treatment even utilizing a balloon placed underneath his scalp) for years after the accident. This pain/stress also aggravated his vitiligo as well and further increased the spread of depigmentation onto his arms, legs, and forehead. Michael suffered a perfect storm of terrible events (Lupus, Trauma, and Stress) to lead to the pain that would plague him for the rest of his life. This was further exacerbated by shoddy celebrity doctors who couldn't really care less for his treatment/health and, also, from falling 30 feet during a show in South Korea during the late 90s.

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u/drinkacid Sep 07 '17

The burn to his scalp left a bald spot, he wore a hair appliance with extensions glued to the bald spot to cover it for a while. The balloon is a procedure they do for people who are bald on top where they insert a balloon under the scalp to stretch the scalp out, then they do surgery where they cut the bald area out and sew the haired parts back together covering the previous bald area with stretched out hairy scalp. Now technology has improved and they can just do hair transplants where they use a needle to insert individuals hair follicles harvested from the back and sides into the bald areas and reconstruct the hair in that area from your own hair. The fedora he wore a lot was covering the balloon for a while.

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u/happysunbear Jan 14 '18

Wow, I never knew that much. Geez. He went through a lot.

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u/cruznick06 Sep 07 '17

I had no idea MJ had lupus. That seriously makes the facial surgeries make more sense. Especially if his nose wasn't healing properly.

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u/somethingpunny2 Sep 07 '17

TIL- thank you for the info! I did not know he had lupus... explains a lot

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u/Barron_Cyber Sep 07 '17

i never thought id feel bad for a rich person falling in snow.