Patriarch of the Jackson 5 dies at 89
Joe Jackson, the man who fathered Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 and deployed an iron will to turn his supremely gifted children into a cultureshifting music powerhouse, died early Wednesday according to media reports. He was 89.
Jackson had been ill for some time with an officially undisclosed condition, and had grown increasingly frail. On June 24, a poetic tweet appeared on his verified Twitter account featuring a picture of him standing against a sunset and suggesting he was ready to depart.
“I have seen more sunsets than I have left to see. The sun rises when the time comes and whether you like it or not the sun sets when the time comes,” the tweet said.
Later, Paris Jackson, daughter of the late Michael, called the tweet “sweet” but questioned whether it reflected her grandfather’s sentiments or even if the verified account was actually his.
Son Jermaine, 63, told British tabloid the Daily Mail that his father was dying (of Stage 4 pancreatic cancer) but complained that his wife and surviving children were barred from seeing him by his “handlers,” including his personal assistant.
TMZ reported that his wife, Katherine, 88, and daughter Rebbie Jackson, 68, and another daughter, Joh’Vonnie Jackson, 43, did visit him on Tuesday. He and Katherine had 10 children; nine survived to have recording careers starting with the Jackson 5 and their rise lifted the family out of poverty in Gary, Ind.
But Jackson was also reviled for his abrasive manner and revelations by his children that he was physically and emotionally abusive.
Michael, who fired his father as his manager in 1979, famously talked about his upbringing on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1993, detailing the physical and mental abuse he said he endured at the hands of his father.
In 2008 Janet Jackson, now 52, criticized her father’s infidelities and the fact that he had a daughter (Joh’Vonnie Jackson) out of wedlock via a long affair. But the Jackson siblings didn’t all agree on the Joe-wasabusive narrative: Some said it happened, a few said it never occurred. Joe Jackson was born in Fountain Hill, Ark., on July 26, 1928 and married Katherine Scruse in 1949 after a two-year courtship.