Behind the records, tours, and the biggest-selling album in history was a childhood Michael Jackson spent much of his life talking about. He was the eighth of ten children and grew up in a small two-bedroom house. He started performing professionally when he was just five years old. His father ran the Jackson 5 rehearsals strictly, and Michael later spoke openly about how difficult those years were.
He wrote in this autobiography, “We’d perform for him, and he’d critique us. If you messed up, you got hit, sometimes with a belt, sometimes with a switch.” He added he was beaten “for things that happened mostly outside rehearsal.”
Michael Jackson Talks About His Dad
Others who were in those rooms have described the same thing. Johnny Jackson, the Jackson 5’s original drummer, recalled an occasion when Michael refused to perform a dance step the way his father wanted, and Joe struck him across the face hard enough to knock him down, shouting at him to do it the way he was told. Michael was around ten.
Michael admitted in Moonwalk that he would try to fight back — and that he never stood a chance.
His brother Marlon described an incident from when Michael was about three. His sister La Toya, his brothers, and family friends have all told versions of it over the years. Joe Jackson denied being abusive, drawing his own distinction: “I never beat him. I whipped him with a stick and a belt.”
Michael Jackson Emotional Speech on his father RIP Joseph Jackson
What makes Michael remarkable is not that it happened. It is what he did with it.
He founded a charity for children. He supported 39 charities, more than any other pop star in history, according to Guinness. He gave away the entire profits of a world tour. He built a house with a fairground in it and filled it with sick and underprivileged children.
And in 2001, giving a speech at Oxford University, he said something almost nobody expected. “I have begun to see that even my father’s harshness was a kind of love, an imperfect love, to be sure, but love nonetheless.”
He took what he was given and turned it outward. That is the whole story.