The Abusive Stage Father Of Michael Jackson
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesJoseph Jackson (left) eyeing his son Michael during a Jackson 5 tour stop in Japan in 1973.
After first achieving childhood stardom with his siblings in the Jackson 5 and then as a sensation in his own right, Michael Jackson was universally heralded as the “King of Pop.”
But behind the star-studded career was a traumatizing upbringing with a pair of severe celebrity parents. Jackson was purportedly physically beaten and verbally tormented by his father Joe Jackson, who allegedly had him chemically castrated in order to retain his falsetto voice.
Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times/Getty ImagesJoe Jackson has never apologized for physically abusing his children.
“If you didn’t do it the right way, he would tear you up,” said Jackson of practicing his performances for his father. “I love my father, but I don’t know him. I don’t know if I was his golden child or whatever it was. Some may call it a strict disciplinarian or whatever, but he was very strict. He was very hard. Just a look would scare.”
Joe Jackson allegedly forced his children into rigorous rehearsals on a regular basis, instructing them to sing and dance while insulting them for any missteps. Punishment involved a strap, belt buckle, or the cord of an electric kettle. He also forced them to carry cinder blocks across the garden for hours or beat them with branches.
Joe Jackson also notoriously called Michael “Big Nose,” which perhaps led to the singer’s rhinoplasty and multiple other plastic surgeries in adulthood. For his part, Joe Jackson said he never regretted beating his kids and that doing so “kept them out of jail and kept them right.”
“The cruelty expressed by Michael that he experienced at the hand of his father,” said Dr. Conrad Murray. “The fact that he was chemically castrated to maintain his high-pitched voice is beyond words.”
That shocking claim remains unsubstantiated as Jackson died in June 2009 and Murray was convicted for administering Jackson’s overdose of propofol.
Even when he was in his 40s, the singer confessed to reporters that the mere thought of his father made him ill. He later confessed that he often socialized with children because he was forbidden from playing with his friends as a young boy and robbed of a childhood of his own.
“It would make me sad that I would have to go to work instead,” said Jackson. “People wonder why I always have children around. It’s because I find the thing that I never had through them.”
