Michael Jackson and his siblings claimed that their father physically and emotionally abused them when they were children — while also acknowledging that his strict discipline led to their success.
Georges Biard/Wikimedia CommonsJoe Jackson built the Jackson 5 and launched the careers of Janet and Michael Jackson, but his strict parenting style sparked controversy.
From the outside looking in, Joe Jackson appeared to be nothing more than a dedicated stage parent who was determined to turn his children into stars. With the success of the Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson’s unparalleled solo career, it seemed foolish to claim otherwise — but then his family started speaking out.
As Jackson’s children became adults, they accused their father of horrendous abuse. During an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 1993, the King of Pop himself revealed that Jackson had regularly beaten him and his siblings while they were growing up.
While attitudes around corporal punishment have changed since the 1960s, the psychological toll abusive parents have on their children has not. Michael Jackson was seemingly developmentally stunted for the rest of his life, which potentially fostered his own alleged abuse of children. Meanwhile, Joe Jackson walked away with the spoils of his labor.
This is the true story of Joe Jackson and his controversial creation of one of the most successful musical dynasties in history.
The Early Life Of Joe Jackson
Joseph Walter Jackson was born on July 26, 1928, in Fountain Hill, Arkansas. Like millions of other Americans navigating the aftermath of the Great Depression, his family relocated across the country in search of economic opportunity.
The move came at a precarious time for 12-year-old Jackson, as his parents had just divorced and headed in different directions. Jackson was the only one of his siblings not to follow their mother to East Chicago, Indiana. Instead, he moved to Oakland, California, with his strict father, Samuel.
Jackson ultimately joined the rest of his family when he was 18. He never finished high school, so he took a manual labor job at the Inland Steel Company in Indiana and pursued a career in amateur boxing. He also tried to make it as a blues musician, but his band quickly fell apart.
victorgrigas/Wikimedia CommonsThe former Jackson family home in Gary, Indiana.
Shortly after moving to Indiana, Jackson met 17-year-old Katherine Scruse. Although he had just married a woman named Isophine Atkinson, he quickly divorced her to wed Scruse, instead. They tied the knot on Nov. 5, 1949, and purchased a home in Gary, Indiana. Over the next 16 years, they had 10 children together: Rebbie, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, La Toya, Marlon, Brandon (Marlon’s twin who died shortly after birth), Michael, Randy, and Janet.
At the time, Joe Jackson had no idea that some of his children would go on to become global superstars.
The Creation Of The Jackson 5
Jackson began pushing his children in a musical direction after discovering that they were playing with his instruments while he was at work. He was furious when Tito accidentally snapped a string on one of his guitars, but he had a light bulb moment when he heard the boy play it beautifully.
The burgeoning stage parent and talent manager quickly formed the Jackson Brothers out of Jackie, Tito, and Jermaine, eventually adding Marlon and Michael to the fold and renaming the group the Jackson 5. They began by competing in local talent contests but nabbed more professional gigs after making a name for themselves.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesJoe Jackson with the Jackson 5 during a tour stop in Japan in 1973.
Jackson secured his children their first record contract with Steeltown Records in 1967, and their debut single, “Big Boy,” was released the following year. While the song wasn’t a major hit, it helped the Jackson 5 earn a record deal with Motown Records in 1969.
At that point, the family relocated to Los Angeles, where the Jackson 5 recorded their first Motown single, “I Want You Back.” The song reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts, and their follow-up singles — “ABC,” “The Love You Save,” and “I’ll Be There” — all followed suit. However, as the band grew hotter, Joe Jackson only became colder toward his children.
The Alleged Abuse Of Joe Jackson
As the Jackson children became adults, they began opening up about the abuse they’d faced at their father’s hands. As reported by the Independent, Michael Jackson revealed in a 1990 interview, “I was so afraid of him that just seeing him walk into the house made my body tremble.”
Joe Jackson didn’t even allow his children to call him “Dad.” “They’re hollering, ‘Dad, Dad, Dad,’ you know, and it gets to be — it sounds kind of funny to me,” the family patriarch told CNN in 2013. “But I didn’t care too much about what they called me, just as long as they [were] able to listen to me and what I had to tell them, you know, in order to make their lives successful. This was the main thing.”
Public DomainThe Jackson children in 1977. Front from left: Janet, Randy, La Toya, and Rebbie. Back from left: Jackie, Michael, Tito, Jermaine (who was later digitally added), and Marlon.
Jackson’s uncompromising parenting style included far worse than this one cold demand, however.
Michael Jackson later said his father routinely punched, slapped, and whipped him and his siblings with belts and electrical cords, particularly when they made mistakes during rehearsals. He also claimed that “Joe” instilled lifelong shame in him over his wide nose, which he surgically altered numerous times as an adult.
According to Michael’s physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, Joe Jackson was “one of the worst fathers to his children in history.” Murray even claimed that Joe had chemically castrated Michael at an early age so he would retain his high-pitched voice, though there is no real evidence to support these allegations.
By the time he released his breakthrough solo album Off the Wall in 1979, Michael had fired his father as his manager. He told Oprah Winfrey in 1993, “There’s been times when he’d come to see me, and I would get sick. I’d start to regurgitate… I love my father, but I don’t know him.”
OWN/YoutubeMichael Jackson speaking to Oprah Winfrey in 1993.
The King of Pop’s sister, La Toya, had shared even more troubling memories. In 1991, she accused her father of childhood sexual abuse, though she later claimed that her husband had coerced her into making the claims.
While Joe Jackson adamantly denied all of these allegations throughout his life, he did state in a 2003 interview that he “never beat [Michael]. I whipped him with a switch and a belt. I never beat him. You beat someone with a stick.”
Despite Jackson’s personal definition of abuse, it’s clear that his domineering parenting style had a formative impact on his children — for better or for worse.
The Aftermath Of Joe Jackson’s Parenting
Joe Jackson had wanted his children to have a better life than he had, and in many ways, he succeeded. By forcing his children to rehearse for five hours after school every day, he kept them off the violent streets of Gary, Indiana. And by pushing them to their limits, he built one of the most iconic bands of the 1960s and created two global superstars in Michael and Janet.
During a 2001 speech at Oxford University, Michael Jackson said, “I have begun to see that even my father’s harshness was a kind of love… He pushed me because he loved me. Because he wanted no man ever to look down at his offspring.”
Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times/Getty ImagesJoe Jackson greeting Michael Jackson’s fans at Neverland Ranch following his son’s child molestation trial in 2005.
But while the Jackson children had successful careers, many of them struggled in their personal lives. Michael designed his home, Neverland Ranch, to live out the innocent childhood he didn’t have a chance to experience. But the estate later became notorious as the place where the King of Pop allegedly molested young boys for years.
While Michael Jackson was acquitted of all charges in 2005, they loomed over him until his death in 2009. Joe Jackson passed away from pancreatic cancer nine years later at the age of 89. But until his final years, he maintained that his parenting style had been successful.
“I’m glad I was tough,” he told CNN in 2013, “because look what I came out with. I came out with some kids that everybody loved all over the world.”
After learning about the life of the Jackson family patriarch, discover the stories of nine Hollywood stage parents who exploited their children. Then, read about Murry Wilson, the violent father of the Beach Boys.
