Joe Jackson And Abuse: Michael Jackson’s Childhood

Others Who Witnessed It

Johnny Jackson, original drummer in the Jackson 5, 1968
Once, Joe tried to convince Michael to execute a dance step a certain way. Michael refused to listen. According to Johnny Jackson, Joe smacked Michael across the face. Michael fell backwards and hit the floor with a thud.
“Now, you do it the way I told you to! You hear me?” Joe hollered at the nine year old.
“I once heard that Michael was late coming to rehearsal and when he walked in, Joe came up behind him and shoved him into some musical instruments. Michael feel into the drums and got banged up pretty bad. Maybe Joe didn’t mean to shove him so hard, I don’t know. But Michael was affected. I know for a fact that Michael began to dislike his father at an early age.”
Sam Moore of Sam and Dave, Late 1960s
Sam Moore, of Sam and Dave, recalled Joe locking Michael – who was maybe 10 years old – in a dressing room while Joe went off on his own adventures. Michael sat alone for hours. He also later recalled having to go onstage even if he’d been sick in bed that day.

Anna Perez, flight attendant, late July 1973
Memory of Micheal: In the early ’70′s, the Jackson 5 was at the height of their popularity and on tour. I was a flight attendant and the group, their roadies and their father filled my first class cabin on a short hop from NYC to Rhode Island for a concert. We had some pretty bad turbulence and were trying to land. I was in the galley, closing out the liquor when the very shy, beautiful teenaged Micheal walked in and said “My father would like two more double Johnny Walker’s– and your phone number.” So, his married father sent his young son to solicit for him. Whatever problems Micheal had later in his life, I place at least some of the responsibility at his father’s feet.
Michael at Montclair Prep Highchool, 1972-1974
“His father Joe Jackson was very strict — he didn’t give him any leeway,” Simpson noted. “One day, Michael got in trouble, not a big thing, but Joe Jackson came to the office furious and started yelling at him. You could see that Michael was very intimidated by his father. My uncle (who was the principal then) had to intervene to calm things down.”
At a Party For LaToya Jackson, Sepia, 1980
And speaking of Polydor Records, the company staged a giant get-acquainted party in Hollywood at Jackie-O’s one recent night for LaToya Jackson, attractive singing sister in the singing Jackson family. LaToya now records for Polydor.
After the hilarity had subsided, and the many press photographers had departed, invited guest Richard Pryor arrived, dressed in a T-shirt imprinted: “Up In Smoke.” Pryor was with his actor friend Stan Shaw, both having arrived in Pryor’s sleek Rolls-Royce Corni- che convertible.
Another late arrival was LaToya’s famous singer-brother, Michael, whose tardiness so enraged their father, Joe (who was observing his own birthday), that the elder whisked off his belt as if to give his 21 -year-old son a few birthday licks.
Filming of Thriller, Vanity Fair, October 11-20 1983
Still living at home at the age of 25, Jackson’s problems with his family were painfully apparent during the shoot. Landis and other crew members witnessed the frequent clashes between father and son, which would become public knowledge in the coming years, when Jackson would publicly refer to Joe Jackson’s abuse.
More than once Landis found himself caught up in the twisted dynamics of the Jackson family. One night when Joseph and Katherine Jackson visited the set, the director recalls, “Michael asked me to have Joe removed. He said, ‘Would you please ask my father to leave?’ So I go over to Mr. Jackson. ‘Mr. Jackson, I’m sorry, but can you please … ?’ ‘Who are you?’ ‘I’m John Landis. I’m directing this.’ ‘Well, I’m Joe Jackson. I do what I please, and I want to be here.’ I said, ‘I’ll have to ask security to remove you if you don’t leave now.’” Landis had a policeman escort Joe Jackson off the set.
“Michael was scared to death of Joseph,” says Larry Stessel, who vividly recalls and evening where Joe walked into the room at the Encino house and Michael literally moved behind Stessel to hide, cowering.
“Michael would lock his bedroom door,” remembers Branca, “and Joe would threaten to bang it in.” (Joe Jackson, through his lawyer, denies this account.)
LaToya Jackson and Ronnie Rancifer on “Night Talk with Jane Whitney,” 1992
Jane: Ronnie you were keyboardist with the Jackson 5 for what, a good number of years.
Ronnie: Yeah. for about 10 years, 8-10 years.
Jane: And at one point you lived with the family?
Ronnie: Yeah, in California.
Jane: Now, [LaToya's allegations] are a terrible thing.
Ronnie: It is.
Jane: Does that surprise you?
Ronnie: Not really, ’cause I don’t really put anything past Joseph.
Jane: What does that mean?
Ronnie: Well, I’ve seen him in occasions like, I mean one time in Gary, while we were rehearsing and his mother fixed him a nice dinner and the brothers were sitting down commiserating and having fun and talking about going to the Appollo theater and doing a gig there and it was zero degrees outside and Joe said, “I want some Kool-Aid.” He said, “Jermaine, go out to the store and get me some Kool Aid,” and Jermaine said, “It’s cold outside!” Joe picked up a harvest spoon and – BAM! hit him across the head, sending him out to go in the cold.
Jane: So you say he was physically abusive to his children. You saw that happen.
Ronnie: With a harvest spoon. Big harvest spoon.
Jane: That aside, how did he treated Latoya? From What you saw.
Ronnie: From what I saw, like Latoya said, she tried to stay to herself, okay, she was real quiet, she was like a shadow. Whenever a guy would come around to Latoya and take on a date, Joseph would hit the ceiling. I was like, wow. Even one time I had, personally, I was teaching her how to swim and he went off. More like, “This is my girl, man.”
Jane: Sounds like a jealous boyfriend more than…
Ronnie: A boyfriend moreso than a father.
Jane: Was he like that when you started to have attention from other men? Was he jealous?
LaToya: Well he didn’t allow me to do anything. I don’t recall a thing, I don’t know if I should phrased it as jealousy or not because you don’t see it that way, but I do recall him not wanting me to do anything with anyone. He just basically wanted me to himself.
Jane: That’s sort of a reclusive life. You didn’t have a normal life where you could go out like other people.
LaToya: No, it wasn’t normal
Jane: Now why did you wait so long to get out of the house, Latoya?
LaToya: Sometimes it takes a lifetime. I tried to leave several times actually and my parents are very good at playing these guilt tricks on you, “You can’t leave the house, you’re a Jackson, somebody’s gonna follow you, they’ll kidnap you,” and my father, he took my luggage and he threw it back in the room, and he threw me in the room and he closed door saying, “You’re not going anywhere,” and this went on continuously when I tried to leave. Now, I look back on it and say, “How silly, why didn’t you just get up in the night and just go.” They always say, “If you left I’ll find you right away and bring you right back home.”
MORET: It is not the media that’s accusing him. Michael Jackson said to ’93 to Oprah Winfrey in a huge interview, and again ten years later, in another huge interview, my father beat me. He abused me. This has been out there in the public. Michael Jackson isn’t here anymore to refute Joe Jackson’s claims. It has been out there in the public. Joe Jackson had his opportunity to refute it. He didn’t.
KING: Roger, wasn’t the age, though — he’s 80 years old — of spare the rod and spoil the child?
FRIEDMAN: Not exactly. I have people who worked for the Jacksons in the ’70s, who talk about how when the kids were rehearsing for the Jackson 5, if Joe didn’t like what Michael was doing, and Michael was his star, he would lock him in a dark closet until he was ready to take him out. Not only he harassed, he tortured this kid.
You wonder why Michael Jackson says he couldn’t sleep. If he did die of Diprivan or something where he couldn’t sleep and needed extreme medicines to make him sleep, this is why; he had nightmares about Joseph Jackson. This is why Joseph Jackson is not in Michael’s will. That should tell us everything right there.
FRIEDMAN: All right, these two guys, they’re the only ones that anyone was trying to keep away from Michael Jackson. They’re the only two that were kept away. Leonard Rowe and Joseph Jackson actually called me on March 18th — I just looked it up on my cell phone bill. They called me to say, right after the AEG Concerts were announced, that they wanted to get involved and take over the concerts.
Joe Jackson said to me, I have to get in there and fix this, because it is no good. Why was it no good? Because he and Leonard Rowe were not getting a cut of it. Last year, Leonard Rowe was sued successfully by R-Kelly, the singer, for 3.4 million dollars for setting up a fraudulent concert tour.
He also had to paid Nio, another R & B singer, 700,000 dollars. The guy has an awful reputation. He’s not even a concert promoter. He’s just a bad guy.
Frank Dileo, Hits Daily Double, 31st July 2009
What was Michael’s relationship like with his father?Joe was his father, and that’s what Michael wanted. He didn’t want to know about any business. He just wanted him to be his father. He wanted to be loved as a son, not a commodity.
Did he ever get that?I don’t know. Watch the Larry King interview with Joe Jackson and you make that determination. It was a train wreck.