Above Image: ‘The Jackson 5' 2009,Rolling Stone,Michael Jackson Special Tribute,p.9.
Michael was born in 1958 in Gary, Indiana. He was the seventh of nine brothers and sisters. Michael's dad, Joseph was a highly disciplined father to his children.
His father would tease Michael as an adolescent, he would make snide remarks and comments about his looks, and saying that he didn't get the bad looks from his side. This would hurt Michael unbelieveably,Joe would say to Michael, 'God your nose is big, you didn't get it from me', Michael would feel like diying as he explains it in an interview.
He would say comments to Michael such as these prior to Michael going on stage in the spotlight, in front of hundreds , thousands of people, these comments were extremely tough to just brush aside and get on with the show. It was a big confidence drop, at the time when you would need as much confidence as you could possibly get.
When Michael and his brothers would practise for shows, Joe would exercise his discipline stongly at this time, and he would use Michael as the example. Whilst practising their father would hold a belt in his hand at the same time, and if you missed a step or did it incorrectly you would get torn down. Practising was highly stressful and nerve racking due to their fathers violent ways.
Not only would Joe use a belt, he would use anything that was available at the time, even iron cords. He would throw Michael or the boys up against the wall and more or less beat you up, even though the Jackson 5 were producing highly successful records.
Joe would easily lose his temper with the boys, Michael would remember his mother screaming saying, 'Joe stop, no your gonna kill him'. Michael was too fast to catch so Joe wouldn't be able to catch him half the time, but when he caught him, it was bad, really bad!
Michael states that he was that terrified of his father, that he would even regurgitate, just from his presence alone, or even faint and his bodyguards would have to hold me up. When Michael was getting beat up, he hated his father with a vengenance, Michael would not apply the same treatment on his children as Joe did.
Joe wouldn't allow Michael to call him daddy, he would say, to you I'm Joe.
Michael had probably one of the not so best of childhoods as you can see, he didn't really have a childhood at all, he was forced to grow and develop extremely fast beyound his years. This is probably why Michael later in his life was very child-like, he was trying to adapt into his life what he lost.
Michael forgave his father for his wrongdoings.
'30 years on and the memories seemed still as raw as if it were yesterday'.
Please visit this blog which relates to my blog, explaining more about the violence which Michael and his brothers had to face, day to day.
http://www.sodahead.com/fun/michael-jacksons-violent-abuse/blog-114767/
That is soooo sad, I still don't think that michael should have changed the way he looked and so drastically,He may have had it tough but in a way he let his father win by changing the way he looked which I believe he partly did because of his fathers comment if it is all true but still he should not have done it, but nobody knows his true true reasons for living his life the way he did except michael and he is gone!!
ReplyDeleteits sad to see what a control freek of a father did to them and i thought lil MJ was such a good loking kid and adolescent, when he started to change his image he wasnt so much good looking though
ReplyDeleteYes, I know when you watch it in the interview, you feel so much remorse for Michael!
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