Beneath his thin mustache was a carnivorous smile. Joe Jackson has always been a cold and authoritarian man. Born in a town in Arkansas, he spent part of his childhood near Chicago, before becoming a boxer and a worker. Installed with his second wife in a small house in Gary, Indiana, he has ten children. Ambitious, he creates with his brother a blues group, The Falcons, which never breaks through. He then pushes his sons into music.
Daily rehearsals are intense for Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael Jackson, dubbed The Jackson Five. For years, Joe has been grooming them for contests, getting them to perform whenever possible wherever possible… They even perform in strip clubs! According to the father, his children never repeat enough. Beaten, humiliated, they had to call him “Joseph”. And Joseph is always ready to take off his belt to hit them with all his might at the slightest mistake, under the helpless gaze of their mother.
Michael Jackson feels alone. He is smaller than his brothers, and does not support bullying. He often cries in despair, especially when his father makes fun of “his big nose” and forbids him to play in the park with the other children. Under these conditions, it is impossible to make friends. But he trusts in the harsh methods of “Joseph”. After all, they will end up paying…
In 1969, Joe landed a contract for the group with the prestigious Motown Records label. Their single “I Want You Back” is a hit. The hits (“ABC”…) follow one another and the father makes the whole family work: the daughters Rebbie, La Toya and Janet join their brothers on the stages of the Las Vegas casinos. Surfing on the success of his offspring, Joe created his own label (Ivory Tower Records) and signed other artists, who opened the Jackson concerts. A “win-win situation”… With an iron fist, Joe manages everything: contract changes, tours, passages behind the camera… The family settles in a large property in California.
Michael, child star, becomes a teenage star, an idol for little girls. In full puberty, he has pimples? His father tells him that he is ugly. Her confidence in him plummets. At the height of fame, Michael is depressed. Yet, not to mention the incredible effect it has had on black music (bringing it out of the ghetto it was locked up in and imposing it on every radio and television station in a predominantly racist America), Michael Jackson is a successful embodiment of the American dream.
Solo, produced by Quincy Jones, he brilliantly mixes hip-hop, pop, funk and rock rhythms to create a very personal, recognizable, sensual, precise rhythm. Able to shake the bones of a skeleton, the “King of Pop” touched the world forever. Nothing will be able to silence this incredible voice whose treble rises in a pleasurable cry as high as the peaks. He is adored all over the world.
At the end of the 1980s, the image of the ideal family definitely broke down. The dictatorial behavior of Joe begins to be known. Some Jacksons cut ties with him. Michael softly confirms the abuse he suffered during an Oprah Winfrey interview in 1993. He admits that he remains so terrified of his father that he vomits before seeing him. “But I love her, I forgive her,” he corrects himself immediately. He knows he’s watching him… He excuses this behavior by the hardships Joe suffered during the Great Depression, the racism endured during segregation…
Every year, MJ continues to honor his father on his birthday: it’s “Joseph Jackson Day.” Joe doesn’t see what he did wrong. After all, her children are role models. He will respond to the host, years later: “I punished him so that he didn’t turn out badly, and my children never ended up in prison, I don’t regret anything. »
Because despite the success of his offspring, the patriarch is ruined. In debt of 24 million dollars, he had to declare bankruptcy. However, he took advantage of his son’s image to the end, launching – without his permission – perfumes bearing his image, or publishing a book of family photos… He died of cancer in 2018, at the age of 89 , owning only his apartment in Las Vegas.
