Prince Jackson is Michael’s oldest son. He’s 29 now, and this spring he sat down with Channel Seven’s morning show “Sunrise” in Australia for what was billed as his only Australian interview.
He was asked about growing up at Neverland, the ranch where he spent his early years with his father and his siblings. And Prince didn’t pretend it was ordinary.
“Growing up at Neverland with my siblings and my father, for us, it was hanging out together as a family,” he said. Only it came “with the backdrop of elephants and giraffes walking in the background.”
Then he put it even more simply. “It felt like your own personal Disneyland,” he said.
Most of us would stop right there. A house with giraffes outside sounds like the whole story.
For Prince, it isn’t. When he talks about the best part of those years, he doesn’t start with the animals at all.
He starts with family nights. “We spent a lot of time playing board games together, reading books, watching movies. It truly was, and is, magical.”
Plenty of families would recognize an evening like that. The only difference was who was rolling the dice and turning the pages. It was the King of Pop.
Prince has talked about his father in other interviews too. In this one, he tells BigBoyTV how Michael was as a father, so it’s worth hearing his voice before we get to the best part.
Prince Jackson talking about his dad with BigBoyTV
Here’s the memory that stands out most.
Michael Jackson could have watched his kids play from a comfy chair across the room. Prince says he joined in instead.
“But when he played with us, he played with us, you know, he got down, and he was playing with the toys and making up stories,” Prince said.
So the King of Pop got down on the floor with his children’s toys. And the stories were his own, made up on the spot with the kids around him.
Prince said that came from who his dad was. “He just had a very childlike nature that was so much fun, always playing pranks on people and stuff.”
To see Michael with his children for yourself, this fan upload of home video is a sweet watch.
Michael Jackson’s home video with his kids
Prince also talked about the big family around him. “I grew up in a big family, and so I have 40-plus cousins, and I see them as my siblings and my friends. And so I never felt lonely,” he said.
And he’s already thinking about the kind of father he wants to be one day. “I would love to have kids and, you know, take notes on what he did as a father,” Prince said, before adding, “but he was always on our level in a way,”
That’s a big compliment from a son. Out of everything Neverland had to offer, the thing Prince wants to copy someday is the way his dad sat down at his children’s level and played.