Most of us have something tucked in a drawer that used to belong to a parent. An old sweater. A watch that stopped years ago. It isn’t worth much to anyone else, but you’d never let it go.
Paris Jackson has a drawer like that too. Hers just happens to hold things that belonged to the King of Pop.
Paris is Michael Jackson’s only daughter and the middle of his three children. Her brother Prince is older, and her brother Bigi, who was once called Blanket, is the youngest. She was born in April 1998, so she was only 11 when her dad passed away in June 2009.
That’s not a lot of years with a father. But she remembers them well, and the way she tells it, at home he was simply her dad.
You can hear how she talks about him these days in this clip, where she opens up about her father and what it was like growing up in the public eye.
Paris talks about her father and growing up in the spotlight
So what did she hold on to?
In an interview for the spring 2022 issue of LVR Magazine, published by the fashion site Luisaviaroma.com, Paris talked about the things she’s kept of her dad’s. Yahoo Entertainment reported her answer in March 2022.
It wasn’t a sequined glove. It wasn’t one of his famous hats or a gold record either.
“I have a pair of my dad’s PJs and a bracelet that he wore the entire time I knew him,” she said.
A pair of pajamas and a bracelet. That’s it. And she added, “I have it in a safe place.”
It’s such a small, ordinary answer, and that’s what makes it hit so hard. Pajamas are what a dad wears at breakfast or when he’s tucking you in. They’re the opposite of a stage costume. And a bracelet he wore the whole time she knew him was part of the dad she saw every day.
She’s talked about that ordinary side of him before. Back in 2010, when she was 12, Paris told Oprah Winfrey, “He was just a normal dad.”
This home video of Michael with his kids gives you a peek at the “normal dad” side Paris was talking about.
Michael at home with his children
The pajamas and the bracelet aren’t the only ways she keeps him close. Yahoo also reported that Paris has seven piercings in her earlobes, because she considered seven to be her dad’s lucky number. And she has a tattoo of him taken from his “Dangerous” album.
So she carries him around with her in a few quiet ways, even when nobody’s asking about him.
One more home video is worth a look, because it catches Michael singing along with Paris and her little brother.
Michael singing at home with Paris and Blanket
Watching it, it’s easy to see why a daughter would hang on to the everyday things. This was the man she knew at home. Years after he was gone, she made sure a little piece of him stayed somewhere safe.