Former Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa made a rare public appearance on Wednesday evening when he attended a high-profile party in Beverly Hills, California.
The 57-year-old baseball icon smiled for cameras and flashed a peace sign while attending The Pump Group's VIP Summer Soiree at the Gravitas social club.
Wearing a royal-blue jacket over a black zip-up shirt, Sosa looked significantly different during the California event compared to previous public outings that had drawn attention to his complexion.
Sosa is a retired Dominican professional baseball outfielder who spent 18 seasons in Major League Baseball, most notably with the Chicago Cubs where he established himself as one of the game's historic power hitters during the 1990s and 2000s.
His recent appearance presented a noticeable contrast to a red carpet event at Art Basel in Miami in 2017, where his skin tone appeared significantly lighter.
Art Basel Miami Beach is an annual international contemporary art exhibition held in Florida, attracting celebrities and art collectors from around the world.
Skin Bleaching Controversy and Past Statements
The former Cubs star previously attributed changes in his skin tone to a skin bleaching cream, a product he publicly defended in a 2018 interview.
"Look at what I am today. This is my life, and I don't take garbage from nobody," Sosa told Sports Illustrated at the time. "I do whatever I want."
Sports Illustrated is a long-standing American sports news publication that has covered major athletic figures for decades.
Meanwhile, the star's oldest son, Sammy Jr, now aged 29, told the magazine in 2018 that the ongoing public conversation regarding his father's complexion "doesn't affect him," though he acknowledged, "I'm sure he feels a certain way."
"Like, 'Man, I gave so many years and so much hard work for you guys, and now you want to undermine all that because of some decisions I'm making - some personal decision that don't affect you at all?'" Sammy Jr said.
Sammy Jr added that his father tends to keep his feelings private: "He's a really closed-off person, even with me. He doesn't mean to be. There are some things I don't know about my dad that I wonder about."
Origins of Changing Complexion
Sosa's physical appearance first sparked widespread public discussion in 2009, when he arrived at the Latin Grammy Awards featuring a noticeably lighter skin tone.
The Latin Grammys are an annual awards ceremony hosted by the Latin Recording Academy to recognize excellence in Latin music worldwide.
Following that appearance, Sosa addressed the speculation during an interview on Univision's Primer Impacto, a leading Spanish-language newsmagazine program in the United States.
He explained at the time that he had been using "a bleaching cream that I apply before going to bed and whitens my skin some."
"It's a cream that I have, that I use to soften [my skin], but has bleached me some," Sosa said during the broadcast.
Defending his image, Sosa added: "I'm not a racist, I live my life happily. 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."
