Michael Jackson’s 18-year-old daughter, Paris Jackson, is making her magazine cover debut with Rolling Stone for their latest issue. It’s been seven years since her father passed away and she’s finally ready to talk.
On her upbringing:
“We actually had a pretty normal life. Like, we had school every single day, and we had to be good. And if we were good, every other weekend or so, we could choose whether we were gonna go to the movie theater or see the animals or whatever. But if you were on bad behavior, then you wouldn’t get to go do all those things.”
On why she believes Michael was murdered:
“Because it’s obvious. All arrows point to that. It sounds like a total conspiracy theory and it sounds like bullshit, but all real fans and everybody in the family knows it. It was a setup. It was bullshit.” She said “a lot of people” wanted him dead.
“AEG Live does not treat their performers right,” she explained. “They drain them dry and work them to death,” she shared.
“He would drop hints about people being out to get him. And at some point he was like, ‘They’re gonna kill me one day.'” (Rolling Stone notes: Lisa Marie Presley told Oprah Winfrey of a similar conversation with Michael, who expressed fears that unnamed parties were targeting him to get at his half of the Sony/ATV music-publishing catalog, worth hundreds of millions.)
On why she identifies as black:
“I consider myself black,” she said, adding later that her dad “would look me in the eyes and he’d point his finger at me and he’d be like, ‘You’re black. Be proud of your roots.’ And I’d be like, ‘OK, he’s my dad, why would he lie to me?’ So I just believe what he told me. ‘Cause, to my knowledge, he’s never lied to me.”
She continued, “Most people that don’t know me call me white. I’ve got light skin and, especially since I’ve had my hair blond, I look like I was born in Finland or something.”
To further prove her point, Paris compared herself to actor Wentworth Miller, who has a black dad and a white mom and looks very similar in completion and eye color as herself.
Growing up, Paris didn’t have a relationship with her mother Debbie Rowe, but eventually linked up with her after her father’s death after researching her online. She said when she was about 10-years-old, she asked Prince about their mom. He revealed her name was Debbie. “And I was like, ‘OK, well, I know the name,” she said.
The teen made her modeling debut with a photo shoot for Chanel earlier this month.
Read the full Rolling Stone interview here.
