Freedman: Michael Jackson’s Children / His Biggest Legacy — His Parents’ Lies

Roger Freedman wrote on his page: "Oprah’s interview is over. Her interview with Katherine and Joseph Jackson was full of lies, tears, and hypocrisy. The positive point of this interview: Michael’s children are amazing. Especially Prince and Paris—they somehow managed to get through a crisis. It seems Michael knew the future, and chose Debbie to be the mother of his children. Paris’s voice and face are exactly like his. Paris is determined and smart, and she’s only 12. Oprah’s interview with these kids is gold. Everyone thought Michael Jackson was completely crazy, addicted... but in reality, he was a good father, and that will be his most important legacy. What did Michael’s parents lie about? First: Katherine can’t remember who told her the news of Michael’s death—Michael’s manager, Frank Dileo, after he called and had them summoned to the hospital. Dr. Conrad Murray was in the room; Katherine asked him a few questions, but it was Dileo who was there next to Michael when he died. And he told Mrs. Jackson because they were friends. And it was Dileo who told Michael’s children that their father had passed away. He remembers Paris starting to scream, "I’m an orphan!", and it was Frank who brought the kids to Mrs. Jackson, who had no proper understanding of them. Second: Katherine Jackson filed for divorce twice since 1970. A few months ago, she was also ready to repeat it. Joe Jackson has at least one child from a relationship outside marriage. All of this is documented. I wrote about this almost 6 years ago here. (Read at the end of the text) Third: Oprah didn’t pick up Joe’s line about beating the children. My impression is that she thought everyone already knew about all this. Michael was definitely terrified of his father. Joe Jackson didn’t just use a whip—if Michael didn’t do well in Jackson 5 rehearsals, he would lock him in the house’s pantry. In 2001, Joe told me that if the kids misbehaved, he would hit them on the back. He was unbearable. That year, I asked him about beating Michael. Fourth: Katherine showed an interesting reaction to this. She told Oprah: "Black people raise their children this way." I doubt most of Oprah’s Black audience would agree with her. I think this statement could lead to a lot of debate. Fifth: Even more interestingly, Oprah didn’t ask Mrs. Jackson what all those kids in Encino are doing, when a family court judge had ordered that place to be cleared out. She didn’t ask Joe about his lawsuit against the Michael Jackson Foundation to obtain an allowance, or his petition to change the foundation’s guardians, or his attempt to get money from Michael Jackson’s death. In 2004, Roger Freedman wrote in an article titled "The Jackson Family Secret Exposed": Michael Jackson’s teenage years appear in films and books, but until now it hadn’t been revealed that when he was 15, his parents had almost divorced. According to recorded documents, Katherine was fed up with her husband’s womanizing and filed for divorce in Los Angeles on March 9, 1973. But in the end, she voided her divorce papers at the request of the Jehovah’s Witnesses Church, of which she was a member. She filed for divorce again in 1979, but she backed out again. That year, it became clear to Katherine that her husband had had a daughter with a woman named Cheryl Terrell. Her name is Jawan(i) Jackson, and she is now 30. She lives in Las Vegas with Joseph Jackson. Jawan(i) was never invited to Jackson family parties, and to this day she has never seen Michael’s house, Neverland. Neither Michael nor Jannet has ever mentioned her. Joseph Jackson’s extramarital relationships with other women—including a music company employee named Gina Spragg—have been mentioned in a TV movie about the Jackson family, as well as in several books, including a book written by Latoya Jackson, his daughter. But in her 1990 book "Growing Up in the Jackson Family," Latoya writes that during the upheavals of the early 1970s, when Jackson Five was busy building a backlog of number-one songs and touring concerts around the world, her mother never thought about divorce. However, court documents say something else. In the 1973 court documents, Katherine lists the names of her five children as minors: Latoya, Marlon, Michael, Steven (also known as Randy), and Jannet. At that time, Rebbie, Tito, Jackie, and Jermaine were over 18. Jawan(i) is 8 years younger than Jannet, the youngest of Katherine’s children. Although Joe and Katherine never divorced, they live separately. Katherine is in Encino, and Joseph is in Las Vegas. When this year he celebrated his birthday in Sin City (the nickname for Las Vegas), his wife Katherine wasn’t there.] Source: eMJey / foxnews.com / showbiz۴۱۱.com