Paris Jackson Opens Up in New ‘Rolling Stone’ Interview
Nearly eight years after the death of her father, Paris Jackson is offering us a glimpse into her world in her own words.
The 18-year-old daughter of the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson, covers the latest issue of Rolling Stone and sits down with the magazine for an intimate interview where she opens up about her unusual childhood and a suicide attempt at the age of 15.
In the eyes of the public, Jackson’s childhood seemed like nothing short of a circus. While he did everything in his power to ensure his children’s privacy, Michael Jackson was often scrutinized for the decisions he made concerning them. However, in Paris’ eyes, he was no different from any other father. While opening up about her home life, she reveals that her father was not one to sugar coat anything. “His number-one focus for us, besides loving us, was education. And he wasn’t like, ‘Oh, yeah, mighty Columbus came to this land!’ He was like, ‘No. He f****** slaughtered the natives.’” When asked if he would’ve used those specific words, she replied, “He did have kind of a potty mouth. He cussed like a sailor.”
For a good part of her childhood, Jackson was constantly the target of child molestation accusations. While he was ultimately found not guilty on all of them, the images of her father being torn apart by people he trusted will always stay with Paris. “My dad would cry to me at night. Picture your parent crying to you about the world hating him for something he didn’t do. And for me, he was the only thing that mattered. To see my entire world in pain, I started to hate the world because of what they were doing to him. I’m like, ‘How can people be so mean?’”
While it has never been confirmed whether or not Paris was Jackson’s biological daughter, her pale complexion and features suggest that he wasn’t. When asked if she has any questions or doubts about her real father, Paris maintained that Jackson is and will always be her father. “He is my father. He will always be my father. He never wasn’t, and he never will not be. People that knew him really well say they see him in me, that it’s almost scary.”
In the years following Michael’s death, life has been turbulent for his children. Thrown in with a family they barely knew, without the only parent they ever knew there to guide them. For Paris, this lead to some very dark years including being sexually assaulted by a “complete stranger” at age 14. “I don’t wanna give too many details. But it was not a good experience at all, and it was really hard for me, and, at the time, I didn’t tell anybody,” she said in the interview.
Paris dropped a few major bombshells when she was asked about the details surrounding her father’s death and who she thought was responsible. “He would drop hints about people being out to get him and at some point he was like, ‘They’re gonna kill me one day.’” When asked if she believed he was murdered, she replied, “Absolutely. Because it’s obvious. All arrows point to that. It sounds like a total conspiracy theory and it sounds like bull****, but all real fans and everybody in the family knows it. It was a setup. It was bull****.”
Read the full profile on Rolling Stone.
Photo Credit: Rolling Stone/Instagram/David LaChapelle
