Paris Jackson, daughter of the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson, gives her first-ever in-depth interview, revealing sexual assault, multiple attempts on her life, her belief that her father was murdered and so much more. For nine shocking things we learned from Paris’ Rolling Stone interview, keep reading.
1. She has 50 tattoos, nine of which are dedicated to the King of Pop: Along with ink dedicated to David Bowie and Prince, the teen model, 18, has nine tattoos in memory of her father, Michael “He’s brought me nothing but joy,” she said. “So why not have constant reminders of joy?”
2. She’s attempted suicide “multiple” times: Jackson revealed she’s tried to end her life three times. “Just once it became public,” she explained of the time she made headlines for cutting her wrist and consuming 20 pain pills when she was just 15. “It was just self-hatred,” she explained of her suicidal actions. “Low self-esteem, thinking that I couldn’t do anything right, not thinking I was worthy of living anymore.”
3. As a result, she was shipped off to a therapeutic school, where she spent a majority of her high school years: Following a third attempt on her life, doctors suggested she attend a therapeutic school. “It was great for me,” she admitted of the institution in Utah, where she spent her sophomore and half of her junior years. “I’m a completely different person … I was crazy. I was actually crazy. I was going through a lot of, like, teen angst. And I was also dealing with my depression and my anxiety without any help.”
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4. She is a survivor of sexual assault: When she was 14 years old, Jackson revealed she was sexually assaulted by a “complete stranger.” “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.”
5. Her father was a stickler for education: “My dad raised me in a very open-minded house,” Jackson recalled. “I was 8-years-old, in love with this female on the cover of a magazine. Instead of yelling at me, like most homophobic parents, he was making fun of me, like, ‘Oh, you got yourself a girlfriend.’
“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–king slaughtered the natives.’ ”
6. She didn’t meet her birth mother until just recently: For a good portion of her childhood, Jackson wasn’t aware that she had a mother. However, as she grew older, she realized that a man “can’t birth a child,” which is when she also discovered she had a mother. Her father told her Debbie Rowe’s name, and when she was 13 years old, she finally decided to find her. “I’ve had a lot of mother figures,” Jackson explained, citing her grandmother and nannies, among others, “But by the time my mom came into my life, it wasn’t a ‘mommy’ thing. It’s more of an adult relationship.”
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7. She’s never questioned whether Michael is her biological father: “He is my father,” she said. “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.”
She continued, “I consider myself Black. [Michael] would look me in the eyes and he’d point his finger at me and he’d be like, ‘You’re Black. Be proud of your roots.’ And I’d be like, ‘OK, he’s my dad, why would he lie to me?’ So I just believe what he told me. ‘Cause, to my knowledge, he’s never lied to me.”
8. She believes Jackson was murdered: “It’s obvious. All arrows point to that,” Jackson explained. “It sounds like a total conspiracy theory and it sounds like bullshit, but all real fans and everybody in the family knows it. It was a setup. It was bullshit.”
9. She won’t rest until her father gets justice: “It’s a chess game. And I am trying to play the chess game the right way. And that’s all I can say about that right now.”
