Micheal Jackson’s son, opens up about his life behind the camera
By Sewe Ishola,
Not what most people would have expected of the son of one the greatest musicians, this world has known, but Thriller singer’s son, Prince Micheal Jackson is charting a course all his own but still in a field, his late father, Micheal Jackson would have loved.
In an extensive interview with Los Angeles Times the 19 year old revealed so much about his life with his dad and his current plans.
“Everyone thinks I’m going to do music and dance,” he says, laughing wryly because, as he is the first to admit, he cannot do either. “Music is a big part of my life,” Jackson says. “It shaped who I am because of my family, but I’ve always wanted to go into production. My dad would ask me what I wanted to do and my answer was always producing and directing.”
Jackson doesn’t operate with the bravado you often encounter in celebrity children raised with a level of privilege, fame and wealth nor does he seem naive — particularly when it comes to how he plans on navigating an industry his father spent years warning him about.
“Trust no one,” Michael once cautioned.
“It sounds bad, but … a lot of people are motivated by themselves,” Jackson says. “He said don’t trust someone just because it sounds like a good idea — do your research. There are a lot of people who want to interact with [me and my siblings] just because of who we are.”
When asked how he and his siblings navigated the allegations and sensational stories, Jackson is candid: “It was a shock,” he says. “It all came at once. But [we] learned how to deal with it by just kind of ignoring it.”
He knows his life has been, in his words, “unconventional,” but he seems at peace with most of it, including the fact that Jackson’s biological mother, Debbie Rowe, terminated her parental rights in 2001. The two do not have a relationship.
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“I’m very lucky to have two mother figures in my life, my grandmother and my cousin Frances. As for my birth mother, she’s always been more of a friend, and that works for us,” he says. “You could say my whole life has been unconventional. I really love that though, and it’s all I’ve ever known.”
He understands the choices his father made as a parent. “My dad spoke to me like an adult. He told us the reason for the masks was he wanted us to have our own life without him,” Jackson said, noting he and his siblings could often go out without their father unbothered because they were unrecognizable.
“I don’t think I ever thought about if other kids lived like that when I was younger. But once I knew who he was, I realized it wasn’t normal.
“I remember being in Disneyland and I went to the window and there were all these fans waving and taking pictures of me. I thought it was normal, so I just waved back,” he continued. “It wasn’t until I saw a video of him performing and people were fainting and passing out, when I realized the work he did meant a lot to people.”
Jackson is interested in producing entertainment but from behind the scenes. Earlier this year he produced his first music video, for Omer “O-Bee” Bhatti’s “Automatic,” and used it to launch King’s Son Productions, the name a wink toward his father’s 1980s coronation as the “King of Pop.” Another video, for the Sco Triplets, soon followed.
Photo credits: http://www.latimes.com/