Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
The tyrant dad behind the Jacksons dies at 89
JOE Jackson, the father of tragic pop icon Michael and manager of the Jackson 5, has died aged 89.
The controversial father-of-11 passed away in hospital yesterday after battling pancreatic cancer.
Grandsons Randy Jr and Taj posted “RIP to the king that made everything possible” and “Our hearts are in pain.”
His passing comes just days after the anniversary of son Michael’s death nine years ago.
Michael’s son Prince Michael Jackson paid tribute to his grandfather by telling him to “fly free”. The 21-year-old shared a photo of them and said: “This man is and always will be an example or sheer willpower and dedication.
“He didn’t choose the path that was the easiest but he choose the path that was best for his family.”
But while many remember Jackson for creating history’s most famous musical family, his life was overshadowed by reports of his brutal parenting.
He admitted beating his sons and cheating on his wife, and was accused of abuse by his daughters.
Joe Jackson prided himself on being the patriarch who spurred his family to superstar status the world had never seen before. But as the years wore on, he became an increasingly controversial figure as claims emerged that he had subjected his children to a cruel and brutal regime to realise his dream.
His relationships with his family became increasingly strained and, when he died yesterday, aged 89, the father of 11 had lived out his final years largely alone.
Jackson, who had pancreatic cancer, was rarely visited at his home near the Stratosphere Casino in Las Vegas.
And four years ago, in a rare display of vulnerability and even rarer show of emotion, Jackson opened up about his lonely life in a post on his website.
“When I suffered four strokes last year and was in the hospital, only two people in my family travelled all the way to see me,” he said.
“My granddaughter Brandi [Jackie Jackson’s daughter] and my baby girl, Janet. She sat right next to me as I lay in bed and she spent time with me.
“We were talking a lot together and it meant a lot to me. I never tell [her] this but I am proud of Janet.”
Yet just days before he died, he had cruelly banned his family from his bedside – only to relent at the 11th hour to let them say their goodbyes.
It was a shocking contrast with the image the world saw when the Jacksons hit the musical big-time.
But an image was indeed all it had been, as behind it he had driven them to the top with years of cold parenting – and outright abuse.
While building his children’s careers, Jackson never allowed them to call him Dad, Daddy or Father. They were ordered to simply call him Joseph.
“I taught them to be tough,” Jackson said. “We raised them in a tough neighbourhood, where other kids were in gangs and getting into drugs. I didn’t want them to be soft.”
He always stubbornly maintained he had no regrets about his methods, once saying: “Not at all. I don’t live that way.”
The full extent of his Jackson’s brutality did not emerge until 1993. Tortured Thriller icon Michael – who died aged 50 from a drug overdose in June 2009 – finally opened up to TV chat show host Oprah Winfrey about how ruthless his father could be.
The King of Pop told how Jackson would sit with a belt in his hands while he watched him and his brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine and Marlon rehearse their routines as The Jackson 5 during the 60s. Michael told Oprah: “If you didn’t do it the right way, he would tear you up, really get you.”
He also said even just the sight of his father made him throw up.
Many people close to the family believe his extensive plastic surgery was a desperate effort to undo his close resemblance to “Papa Joe”.
Jackson later admitted he “whipped” Michael but denied it could be categorised as a beating. “I whipped him with a switch (cane) and a belt. I never beat him. You beat someone with a stick,” he told the BBC’S Louis Theroux in a 2003 interview.
The chat also made headlines because Jackson said in response to a question about his superstar son: “We don’t believe in gays. I can’t stand them.”
Jackson’s children said his whippings with his belt or cane would “sting like fury” and leave bloody welts.
Even when they were into their 20s and married, the Jackson brothers lived in fear of their father’s violent anger.
Several times, their mum Katherine had to intervene when Jackson attacked one of his sons with a belt.
“They are grown now, Joe, they are
ON REHEARSAL BEATINGS
stars, they have fans,” she would plead. “What are you going to do with a belt?”
Jackson’s relentless aggression pushed many of his children into early marriages and doomed relationships as they desperately sought to flee his control.
And the abuse was not confined to his sons – daughters Rebbie, Janet and La Toya were also subject to his outbursts.
Janet once recalled him striking her when she was getting out of the bath as a little girl. “I don’t remember if I truly deserved it,” she said.
In her 1991 memoir, La Toya, 62, wrote that in addition to beating his children, he molested her and Rebbie.
She said: “When your father gets out of bed with your mother and gets into bed with his daughter and you hear the mother saying, ‘No, Joe, not tonight. Let her rest. Leave her alone, she’s tired’, that makes you crazy.” Rebbie, 68, claimed at the time of the book’s release she was not raped.
But when interviewed later for a planned book of her own, she said: “Joseph did inappropriately touch me.”
Born in Fountain Hill, Arkansas, in 1928, Joseph Walter Jackson was the oldest of five children.
His parents split when he was 12 and he went with his father to Oakland, California, while his mother moved to Indiana.
Jackson moved to be with her at 18 and trained to be a boxer. He wed Katherine Scruse in 1949, having annulled a previous marriage to be with her.
They went on to have 10 children together. Noticing the musical talent of many of his offspring, Jackson became a manager for them.
The Jackson 5 had formed by 1966 and went on to have hits including I W You Back, ABC and Never Can Goodbye. But the family were riven decades by internal strife, legal bat jealousies, arguments over cash estrangements.
Central to all the family’s woes Joe, whose affairs led their lives descending fur into chaos. According to Katherine Jackson’s autobiography, her husband cheate her throughout their 60-year marria
She filed for divorce in 1973 but it later rescinded.
In 1974, Joh’vonnie Jackson was b out of a decades-long affair Jackson with Cheryl Terrell.
Katherine would file for divor second time, although she never leg went through with the split and t