TYRANT WHO CREATED A POP DYNASTY BUT BROKE A FAMILY
when he was asleep. By the end of the decade however, Michael – now a global star in his own right – had asserted some control of his own, securing a solo deal and freeing himself from his father’s management.
Instead, Joe turned his attention to youngest daughter Janet. Although she has said he never physically abused her, she revealed in 2011 that in later years the two barely spoke, adding: “I wish our relationship was different. I think my father means well and wants nothing but the best for his kids… but that is not necessarily the right way.”
However, Janet’s older sister La Toya, now 62, painted a very different picture in her 1991 autobiography, writing that Joe not only beat his children but sexually molested her and sister Rebbie. “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,” she wrote. She later said she regretted the accusations: “I was young then and had a lot of people in my life that didn’t need to be there. So I lashed out at my father, both of my parents really, because of things other people said.”
ALTHOUGH Joe remains married to Katherine, in 1974 he fathered another daughter, Joh’Vonnie, 43, with Cheryl Terrell, a secretary 20 years his junior with whom he had a 25-year affair.
In a recent interview this year she described Joe as a “loving” father who was a regular visitor to his secret family, lavishing her with gifts and tending the vegetable patch with her mother, who died in 2014. But if he had a good relationship with Joh’Vonnie, by the time of Michael’s death in 2009, Joe was all but cast out from the superstar family he had helped create.
Although Katherine receives more than $1million (£750,000) annually from Michael’s estate, Joe was completely left out of his son’s will. Yet despite that, he has still attempted to cash in on Michael’s fame, allegedly charging $50,000 (£38,000) “appearance fees” to talk about his son, and even trying to market a range of perfumes in a Las Vegas mall with Michael’s image on them.
Now, as the patriarch’s health fades, it seems he’s still attempting to assert one last degree of control over his family, even as they try to visit his sickbed to say their last farewells.
In one of his most recent interviews, Joe Jackson remained unrepentant about the way he brought up his children. “I’m glad I was tough, because look what I came out with,” he said. “I came out with some kids that everybody loved all over the world.”