Joe Jackson: I’m Happy I Was Whipping Michael

Yesterday, Joe Jackson—the 84-year-old father of Michael—appeared on an exclusive interview on Piers Morgan’s show, and Morgan described him as the most iconic father in the music industry and the head of the Jackson family. Joe accepted the nickname: “Yes, I’m the boss.” Michael’s former manager, Dieter Wiesner, accompanied him in the interview.

Joe said about the day he heard the news of Michael’s death: “I was in Las Vegas. A fan called me and said, ‘Mr. Jackson, something happened. An ambulance came out of Michael’s house, and a fire truck was following it.’”

He also claimed, citing unnamed sources, that Michael had tried to contact him before his death:

“The saddest part of the story is that before he died, he tried to call me. He said, ‘Call my father—he knows how to save me.’”

Joe also compared Michael to Howard Hughes and claimed that people were preventing him from reaching his family:

“They treated him the way they treated Howard Hughes. Our family couldn’t connect with Michael the way they should.”

Michael had spoken in the media about his turbulent relationship with his father and said that as a child, seeing his father would make him nauseous from fear. Besides Michael, the other children in the family were also beaten by their father, which negatively affected their relationship with him. Joe also cheated on his wife Katherine with many women, and this issue pushed Michael further away from his father.

During his conversation with Piers Morgan, Joe claimed that people were trying to persuade his wife Katherine to get a divorce from him, but “this will never happen!” Joe didn’t mention any specific person, but said he didn’t mean his children. Years ago, Michael had said that he and his sisters and brothers had asked their mother to divorce Joe.

Katherine Jackson has been financially supported by Michael for years and is considered one of Michael’s heirs while he was alive. Katherine has always given part of the monthly allowance Michael provided her to Joseph to cover her expenses. Katherine and Joe have lived apart for many years.

On Piers Morgan’s show, Joe Jackson again defended his violent methods toward Michael and his “whipping” of him as a child. He believes that Michael’s successes, as well as those of his brothers and sisters, were the result of his mistreatment. During this interview, a clip from a previous Piers Morgan interview with Janet Jackson was shown, in which Janet said that as a child she was not allowed to call Joseph “Dad.” Michael had also explained years ago why Joe behaved that way: “He would say, ‘Don’t call me Dad—I’m Joseph.’ That’s how he felt: that he was still a young and attractive man. He had too much class to be ‘Dad.’ He was Joseph.”

Joe Jackson said about this:

“I’m happy about how harsh I was with them because it resulted in my children being loved all over the world now and being kind to people. There’s no such thing as beating children. You whip them to punish them for what they did, and they will always remember your doing that. At the time, I had to do it because our city (Gary) was full of criminals and criminal gangs. Michael was a good man. People don’t know anything about how he was raised as a child. But (I) raised him. I made sure he respects people older than himself.”

Michael Jackson said he never begged his father for physical abuse: “He never heard me say, ‘Please don’t hit me.’” Instead, he also fought back against Joe. Michael, who always blamed his father for ruining his childhood, did not mention him in his will. And Joe filed a lawsuit to get a share of Michael’s wealth, but it went nowhere. He also tried several times to start a business producing products bearing Michael’s name and logo, but this move was met with opposition from Michael’s company.

Joe Jackson went on to describe Michael as an intelligent child who learned things quickly. He added that he could recognize Michael’s personality traits in his youngest child, Blanket.

Elsewhere, Michael’s father talked about the This Is It concerts that ended without success due to Michael’s death, saying: “The purpose of this tour was to raise money to build a hospital for children.” (This point was revealed during Michael’s 2011 murder trial: News Warning: Disturbing content!)

Piers Morgan then asked Joe about the allegations of child abuse, and Joe replied that the purpose of such false accusations was to control Michael’s life and career.

Piers Morgan: “Did you ever tell him that his friendship with children might not be good for his image?”

Joe Jackson: “Michael was a child himself. He loved children and tried to provide them with things they didn’t have.”

Morgan also, after airing a 2002 audio recording of Michael and Dieter Wiesner—during which the King of Pop explains his plans to buy Marvel—asked Wiesner to speak about Michael Jackson as a businessman. Unfortunately, after the allegations against Michael in 2003, the idea of buying Marvel was also forgotten, and the company was bought by Disney, bringing the same successes and huge obstacles for Disney that Michael had predicted.

Dieter Wiesner: “He knew exactly what he wanted, and he was right. He knew that music wouldn’t go beyond that, and he knew that investing in Marvel would make him the richest artist in the world.”

At the end of the video (19:19), Piers Morgan played a portion of the audio conversation in which Michael spoke in a very hoarse voice that we’ve heard less often:

“I don’t want to die before I reach my goals. We changed the world.”

At the end, Joe Jackson said that, in his view, Michael’s kindness and love are his legacy, and if all people in the world were like him, there would never be war.

Joe also used the interview to promote a new documentary made about the story of his own life.

Watch the video of this interview on YouTube.

Source: eMJey.com / CNN