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Nov 11, 2009 5:40 pm US/Eastern
Sammy Sosa Addresses Buzz Surrounding Lighter Skin
CHICAGO (CBS4) ―
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Former baseball player Sammy Sosa is seen on Nov. 4, 2009 in Los Angeles; and gain on May 13, 2009, in New York City.
Kevork Djansezian/Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images
Ex-baseball slugger Sammy Sosa shocked many of his fans when a recent picture showed his skin tone to be much lighter than it was during his playing days. "Wow"..said one former fan in the cafeteria at Jackson Memorial Hospital. "He looks like Michael Jackson," said another.
On Tuesday, for the first time, Sosa explained the change in his skin color. In the first segment of a two-part interview on the Spanish Univision network, the former Cubs star said that playing all those day games under the sun at Wrigley Field damaged his skin. Sosa admits to using an unnamed European skin cream to repair the damage.
"I have this cream that I put on at night before I go to bed," Sosa said. "And it lightens the skin on my face a bit. But this has caused such a controversy, that even I am surprised."
Sosa claims the lightening of his skin is a side effect, not the main aim of the treatment. But others aren't convinced.
Sosa says he just used the skin cream and a camera flash made him look lighter. "No camera did that," opined another person who saw pictures of the old and new Sammy side by side.
Loretta Ciraldo, a dermatologist for thirty years, says a laser peel can lighten skin, but she says that's not wise for people of color. If Sosa used a bleaching cream, she says, he'd have to keep using it.
"Once you stop, you return to your original color," Ciraldo said.
"Laser peels are risky for people of color because in the long term, you could actually end up darker than you were before," said Ciraldo.
While some are shocked by Sosa's new look, others shrug their shoulders.
"Folks get sun tans all the time, and nobody makes a big deal about it. So why is this any different ," asked someone online?
Like many other things, beauty may be in the eye of the beholder.
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