Sammy Sosa speaks about skin lightener: 'I'm not a racist'

Sammy Sosa said he's using a "bleaching cream" to soften his skin and is not trying to change his pigmentation.

"I'm not a racist," he told ESPN Deportes.

Sosa, in his first public remarks since the famous photos became public, said he's not trying to look like Michael Jackson:

"What happened was that I had been using the cream for a long time and that, combined with the bright TV lights, made my face look whiter than it really is. I don't think I look like Michael Jackson," he said to ESPN Deportes.

Sammy Sosa last week in Las Vegas (Getty Images)

Sosa then said joked: "I'm going to market it, I'm a businessman." He said he got it in Europe.

Meanwhile, Sosa's agent was spotted in the lobby at the O'Hare Hilton Tuesday afternoon, but he wasn't about to talk about you know what.

"Don't even ask," Adam Katz said with a laugh before a reporter could even get the word "hello" out of his mouth.

Katz has been deluged with questions about Sammy Sosa's pigmentation, which is much lighter these days due to what Sosa said is a skin rejuvenation process.

While Katz didn't want to discuss Sosa's skin, he did confirm he plans on attending the former Cubs' annual birthday party on Saturday in Miami.

Sosa, who turns 41 on Thursday, has thrown a gala birthday bash for himself for over a decade, but it's by invitation only.

First it was skin rejuvenation, and then a European bleaching crème to soften his skin, instead of using a nice lotion to soften his skin. I thought bleaching crème was to... bleach? I would have just stuck w/ the skin rejuvenation answer. But still, there's no reason to bring up Michael Jackson (r.i.p.) "Bright TV lights" LMAO! OK, but the lights did not effect the shade of his lips though. I did see him on 2 hispanic stations being interviewed about what happened... but I understand very little spanish :(

Really how did he look?

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Originally Posted by nikkicute

Really how did he look?

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Lol... he looked like he bleached. The same as he did in those pics. I need to learn more spanish, would have loved to know what he was saying in that interview.

Oh I thought he would have looked a bit more normal.
I think there might be some makeup/foundation too.
If he stops he might re-darken to a lighter shade of caramel.

Well, the lighting in the room looked slightly dim compared to the photos that were taken. But, there was a black hispanic who was interviewing Sammy and the interviewer's complexion was similar to Sammy's old color. Sammy looked quite pale to him, don't know if that was done diliberately to show the complexion differences. Sammy was still unrecognizable to me. I ouldn't be surprised if he was wearing foundation as well.

Well. I'm not sure about beyonce... I thnk she just has skin that can go light to dark easily.. so if she lightens, she can probably do it with kojic acid alon... but rHIANA... SHE IS LIGHT TOO , BUT STILL SHE IS PALE NOW... I don't know.. seems funny style to me to just claim she stays out the sun.. Lol...

I guess Ri likes her new ghostly emo look.. works well with her music :o. She does more than stay out of the sun.

In reply... at first I thought that they weren't. I thought that in the photos where their skin is darker, they had tanned... because everyone gets darker in the sun, even dark people... and I thought perhaps to go whiter, they just wore a lot of sunscreen... but some of the photos seem convincing enough. I wonder what they used to lighten their skin. My opinion is that they were all much more beautiful when they were natural. Especially Lil Kim... I think her skin color is absolutely beautiful when it's dark.

I felt that way about Michael Jackson too. I guess us white girls like to go darker (tanning) the same way dark people want to go lighter (bleaching) I guess we all want to look "light brown" :) Maybe one day... with enough interracial marriage and mixing of gene pools we'll all get lucky and have that light golden skin color we all want.

:)