Quincy Jones: 'Michael Obviously Didn't Want to Be Black'

By all accounts, Michael Jackson had some issues. Especially when it came to the color of his skin. At least, that's what Quincy Jones is saying.

In an interview with Detail Magazine's Jeff Gordiner, Friday, Jones recounted his discussions with Jackson about the singer's discomfort over his skin color in the 1980s, long believed by many to be the reason for his many plastic surgeries over the years.

"Oh, we talked about it all the time," the "Thriller" producer said. "But he'd come up with, 'Man, I promise you I have this disease,' and 'I have a blister on my lungs,' and all that b.s. It's hard, because Michael is a Virgo, man--he's very set in his ways. You can't talk him out of it. Chemical peels and all that stuff."

The disease Jones is referring to--vitiligo, a disease that affects the pigmentation of the skin and hair--was commonly cited by Jackson in TV interviews as a cause of his white skin tone. However, according to Jones, Jackson's problems went far beyond a few patches of white skin on his face.

"It's ridiculous, man," Jones said of Jackson's constant altering of his appearance. Chemical peels and all that. And I don't understand that. But he obviously didn't want to be black."

Asked by Gordiner whether he confronted Jackson about the issue, Jones denied it.

"No, no, no, please. That's not the way you do it."

The "Wiz" composer is not the only one to have brought up criticisms of Jackson's appearance. In a 2005 book by concert promoter and self-described Jackson confidante, Bob Jones, Jones described Jackson's alleged use of bleaching agents as "unbelievable and ungodly."

According to his book, "Michael Jackson: The Man Behind the Mask," Jones alleged that Jackson fired him and his secretary in 2004, a year before the allegations. The publicist, who helped popularize the term, "The King of Pop," in the 1980s, died in 2008 at age 72.

Besides Bob Jones, the sentiment is shared by many in the African-American community, including social critic Michael Eric Dyson, who wrote of Jackson in his "Michael Eric Dyson Reader," that the singer "fails to understand that, as a cultural icon . . . the seeming de-Africanization of his face reflect a wrestling of profound questions of identity and self-image that influence the way his artistic achievements are perceived."

Despite Jackson's discomfort with his own appearance, critics--especially Dyson--note that he often mined the subject of racial identity in his videos throughout the 1980s, including "Bad," which highlighted the social ills that go along with perceived "blackness" or "whiteness."

However, those burning questions were later outnumbered by what reporters and family friends have been euphemistically referring to as Jackson's "controversies"--the multiple pedophilia allegations, the lawsuits, the bizarre p.r. appearances.

However, with Jackson's death, fans, friends, and even the tabloids are choosing to hype his legacy over the idiosyncratic behavior that marred his later years. But for Quincy Jones, Jackson's passing comes down to one and only one thing: The passing of a friend.

"Our souls were joined, you know," he said. "And a little piece of it [my soul] goes with him."