It was July 7th 2009 when Paris Jackson stepped decisively into the glare of the media spotlight her famous father had desperately tried for her to avoid.
Standing onstage at Michael Jackson’s funeral, the crying 11 year old firmly told Aunt Janet that she wanted to say something. Unplanned and unscripted, the clearly distraught little girl was not to be dissuaded.
Following a childhood in which her face was hidden from photographers in blankets and masks, Paris shook off whatever anonymity remained by declaring in front an estimated one billion people, “Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father I could imagine,” she said, before dissolving into tears, “I just want to say I love him so much.”
And from that moment up until landing the high profile cover of this month’s Rolling Stone, Paris—now 18 years old—has never strayed far from the spotlight, albeit building up her celebrity profile somewhat stealthily.
She, along with brothers Prince Michael and Blanket, accepted a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award for Michael Jackson at the 2010 Grammy Awards and in 2012 Paris made a guest appearance on the Oprah Winfrey series Next Chapter, where she discussed her father, her childhood and her experience as a victim of cyberbullying.
Lately she’s been everywhere. Making her Paris Fashion Week debut; reportedly signing onto a role in Lee Daniels’ TV drama Star; playing out a romance with musician Michael Snoddy; and most ambitiously declaring her intention to spearhead a post-Trump political revolution.
i hope you realize it’s because of your own words and actions that we will, sir, start a revolution. it will be beautiful. @realDonaldTrump
— Paris-Michael K. J. (@ParisJackson) January 29, 2017
We shouldn’t be surprised by Paris’ very public model, actress, whatever… pretensions.
For, despite her father’s untimely demise, far from being put off by the pressures of fame, Paris appears to be drawn to stardom like a heat seeking missile. During a September appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres show Paris says it was dad Michael that made her want to go into acting. “My dad was in the movie Moonwalker and I knew he could sing really well but I didn’t know he could act,” she said. “I saw that and I said, ‘Wow, I want to be just like him.’ We would do improv together. He would give us little scenarios. He would go, ‘OK, in this scene you’re going to cry,’ and I’d cry on the spot.”
Older brother Prince Michael told Rolling Stone, “Basically, as a person, she is who my dad is. The only thing that’s different would be her age and her gender.” Paris is similar to Michael, he adds, “in all of her strengths, and almost all of her weaknesses as well. She’s very passionate. She is very emotional to the point where she can let emotion cloud her judgment.”
And much like her legendary dad, Paris’ journey into fame has not been an easy one—indeed it has been fraught with suicide attempts and drug use. In early June 2013, several media outlets reported that emergency responders were called to then 15-year-old Paris Jackson’s home following a possible suicide attempt. According to a report by People.com, Paris was hospitalized after she “cut her wrists with a kitchen knife and took as many as 20 ibuprofen tablets.”
At the time drowning in depression and drug addiction, Paris now admits she actually tried to kill herself multiple times. “It was just self-hatred,” says, “low self-esteem, thinking that I couldn’t do anything right, not thinking I was worthy of living anymore.” This last attempt to end her life followed years of self-harming by cutting.
Some of her many tattoos now cover the scars, as well as what she says are track marks from drug use. Eventually Paris attended a therapeutic school in Utah which was a turning point for her. Now a sober Paris says, “It was great for me…I’m a completely different person. But up to that point, I was actually crazy, I was going through a lot of, like, teen angst. And I was also dealing with my depression and my anxiety without any help.”
Despite her initial struggles, Michael Jackson’s only daughter is about to make her own Star turn, with an acting debut in an upcoming episode of Fox’s music-themed drama. Star, which follows three talented young singers with ambitions of stardom attempting to navigate the cutthroat world that is the music business.
Jackson will play Rachel Wells, a savvy and well-connected social media guru who deliberately goads the singers into pushing some boundaries. A Paris insider tells Heat Street: “Paris is really hoping Star will ignite her acting career. She could be a great actor as she’s a smart kid. She’s really funny and upbeat considering she was dealt such a bad blow with the loss of her father. She had a tough time and wasn’t sure she wanted to be in the public eye but she’s evidently got over it and is now keen to be in the spotlight.”
The source added that we shouldn’t expect Paris to count on many famous members of her family entertainment dynasty for a leg up. Paris is close to her c0-guardians TJ Jackson—Michael Jackson’s nephew—and family matriarch Katherine Jackson but doesn’t speak regularly to Jermaine Jackson or new mother Janet Jackson.
Heiress to a mammoth fortune, estimated at upwards of $1 billion, it seems that Paris Jackson is now embracing that other, more intangible part of her inheritance: that of celebrity.
Commenting on Paris’ first foray into the spotlight at Jackson’s funeral, Syracuse University media scholar Robert Thompson noted that after a lifetime of being shielded and hidden from the world, the first few moments in the limelight may have helped her deal with her enormous grief.
“This kid in an odd sort of way has been liberated,” Thompson opined. “Literally, the veil has been dropped from her, and one gets the sense that this liberation will be a good thing.”
We shall see.
