He started out modestly enough — by just wanting a different nose. In the end, after up to 100 procedures, he was desperately trying to repair the damage done by reckless and botched operations and injections.

Michael Jackson, surely the most infamous example of the perils of cosmetic surgery, spent 30 years trying to achieve his idea of perfection.

Some friends said he was modelling himself on Diana Ross, others that he just wanted to obliterate all resemblance to his hated father.

1977, left: Only 19, Michael is the star of the Jackson Five and about to launch himself as a solo performer. Despite this success, he loathes his appearance, as he recalled years later: ‘I had pimples so badly it used to make me so shy. I cried every day.’ Indeed, the misery is written all over his face. According to La Toya, Michael was especially distressed by his nose and would say: ‘It’s too big, I want to get it done.’ 1979, right: An apparently confident 20-year-old Jackson shows off his new nose. Ashamed to admit he just wanted a smaller nose, he claimed he’d had an operation after breaking it during a dance rehearsal. However, he wasn’t satisfied with this result — Dr Steven Hoefflin, who performed a second nose job to correct the original operation, said that he was left with breathing difficulties and ‘required further work’

1983, left: Publicising his best-selling album Thriller, Michael has got rid of his teenage afro and is wearing skin-lightening make-up. His nose seems to have been thinned again and cheek implants have been inserted. He liked the effect so much he had a third nose job the following year, increased the size of the cheek implants and had his eyelids ‘lifted’, which reduces bagginess and removes excess skin. 1991, right: Now 33 and living a reclusive life. After a fourth or fifth nose job, his nostrils have started to assume a triangular look. (In 1992 he was spotted wearing a prosthetic nose tip to try to cover up the botched results of the surgery.) He has a new dimple in his chin and has had chin implants to make it larger. He has started to look whiter — he later claimed this was a consequence of the skin condition vitiligo

A new TV documentary about his surgery addiction reveals he was so nervous about the initial rhinoplasty (nose job) that he persuaded his older sister La Toya to act as a guinea pig.

Miss Jackson, 58, said: ‘He wanted to get his nose done . . . he kept saying: “What do you think? What do you think?” I said: “Michael, if that’s what you want, if it’s gonna make you feel better, get it done.”

‘He asked me: “Can you be the guinea pig for me? Can you get your nose done and let me see how it looks, and if it hurts?” ’

Once satisfied with the results of La Toya’s operation, Michael went ahead with it himself in 1979.

1995, left: Jackson, 37, is extremely pale thanks to frequent skin bleaching by a dermatologist and heavy use of make-up. He has also started to wear wigs. His friend, illusionist Uri Geller, asked why he was changing his appearance. Geller says he replied: ‘I don’t want to look like my father.’ By now Michael was married to Elvis’s daughter Lisa Marie Presley. They separated the following year. 2002, right: He has taped his nose, apparently to stop fluid from botched surgery from leaking into his mouth. He wore the tape at all times during this period. Leading rhinoplasty surgeon Dr Pamela Lipkin said: ‘I think something in his nose, a graft, an implant, has now come out through the skin and that’s why he’s probably got a hole in his skin. He has what we call an end-stage nose, one that’s beyond the point of no return’

2003, left: Looking more feminine shortly after the birth of his third child, Blanket. In a controversial documentary made by Martin Bashir, he claimed: ‘I’ve had no plastic surgery on my face, just my nose. It helped me breathe better so I can hit higher notes. I am telling you the honest truth, I didn’t do anything to my face.’ He also said he’d be happier on stage ‘wearing a mask’. 2009, right: Jackson, 50, was in debt to the tune of £350 million. He announced a surprise tour called This Is It. His friend Dr Allen Klein said: ‘It got to the point where his nose was far too thin. It didn’t look natural to me. I rebuilt it using fillers.’ He is missing part of his ear — the cartilage having been used to rebuild his face. He died of a cardiac arrest in June before the tour after being given drugs to help him sleep

A computer-generated image of how Michael Jackson would have looked today without surgery

Seven years later, he also persuaded a friend and fellow plastic surgery devotee, Hollywood hair stylist Steve Erhardt, to be the first to experiment with a cleft chin operation.

Erhardt claims Michael’s plastic surgeon told the singer that he needed a chin ‘like Kirk Douglas, something very masculine’.

After Erhardt’s new chin was revealed, Jackson went on to have this operation several times.

Despite his initial nerves, Michael also had Botox, fillers, bleached his skin, had cheek implants and lip augmentation. He changed the shape of his nose to the point that it was so narrow the airways were blocked.

Body dysmorphic disorder expert Dr Eda Gorbis — who believes Jackson was suffering from the illness, where sufferers have a distorted view of their appearance — has claimed he had as many as 100 procedures.

Eventually his original features were almost completely obliterated, as was his ethnicity.

But the documentary’s most heartbreaking revelation is a computer-generated image of how the star could have looked had he left his face alone — an attractive, contented black man with a warm smile.