Lee Thomas: 'Would Other People See a Monster?'

Jan. 3, 2007— -- For more than a decade now, Detroit television audiences have taken to entertainment reporter Lee Thomas, and so have all his colleagues. Dana Hahn, one of Thomas' bosses, said, "He's just a charismatic, outgoing person and our viewers over time have just come to adore him."

But hearty as the newsroom camaraderie was, Thomas kept a distance, and a secret. For a time, he was so private he wouldn't let himself be seen on the Detroit streets on the days when he wasn't working. He was trying to hide the fact that, under his television makeup, his face was uncontrollably changing.

"I stayed in the house because I don't want people to see what I looked like," Thomas said. The mysterious white blotches that had spread to his face began years before with small pale spots on his scalp and one hand. And he'd been living in fear of how far and how fast they might spread since getting a diagnosis from an expert dermatologist in 1994. Thomas was told he had a disease called vitiligo, something an estimated 4 million Americans have. The disease has no cure and it causes the skin to lose its pigmentation, turning it white.

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Thomas said he was shocked when he received the diagnosis from his doctor. "I'm sure he kept talking because I saw his mouth moving, but … I didn't hear anything he said, and I actually had to go, 'Stop for a second, doc, did you just say there's no cure?'"

Thomas remembers having to look at his face as it changed before his eyes. "I don't know if you can imagine looking in the mirror and not seeing you," he said. "I wondered, did other people, would other people see a monster when they saw me?" That mysterious transformation from black to white was made famous in the very publicly changing face of Michael Jackson. Many people have said that Jackson does not really suffer from the disease, but Thomas thinks otherwise. "One glove he used to wear," he said. "I used to wear one glove to cover it. So I mean, I understand all of his struggles."

Thomas decided to keep his secret from everyone he worked with, telling only close friends and family. For four long years, he held his secret in, until he couldn't cover it up any longer. Vitiligo is not fatal, but Lee thought it would mean the death of his television career. Being on television was a dream Thomas had had since childhood. He achieved his dream and said he could feel it all slipping away as his own skin betrayed him. "I was thinking of what else I could do," he said. "And it was tough because I had worked so hard to achieve this."