Paris Jackson was just 11 when her dad Michael Jackson died suddenly. Now 23 — she’ll be 24 next month — she holds on to a couple of the things he left behind.
“I have a pair of my dad’s PJs and a bracelet that he wore the entire time I knew him,” Jackson said in a new interview published in the spring issue of LVR Magazine by Luisaviaroma.com. “I have it in a safe place.”
Jackson also pays tribute to her father with her seven earlobe piercings — seven was his lucky number, she said — and with a tattoo of him from his Dangerous album. She now has more than 80 pieces of body art in all.
According to the story, her brother Prince, who’s 25, thinks she is the most like Michael of her siblings. They have a 20-year-old brother, Bigi, who was once known as Blanket, with whom she’s close. She also considers 36-year-old Omer Bhatti, whose mother worked as a nanny for them when they were growing up, as a brother.
In talking about her childhood, the singer and actress mentioned that she wasn’t a fan of school. She was homeschooled until seventh grade and then spent the remainder of her education attending private boarding schools, including one for behavior modification, which, she notes, is similar to the one where Paris Hilton said in This Is Paris that she had suffered abuse. Jackson, who’s noted that she and Hilton had “a lot of similar experiences” at the institutions, reiterated that parents should do their research.
“There should be a better vetting process [in everything]: before you medicate — or something even more dangerous, like selling a gun — you should vet them,” she said. “It’s important in all kinds of situations. It could be as simple as a job, or as complicated as medicine or a weapon. Psychiatrists hand out addictive medication like candy without really vetting the patient. There is no harm in vetting.”
Jackson’s “most recent sobriety,” as the magazine put it, began during the pandemic. Since it began, she’s also released her first album, 2020’s Wilted, and she’s getting ready to go on tour.
She’s also, always, spiritual.
“I have philosophies I’ve been told are Buddhist. For example, I believe the meaning of life is suffering, which is a Buddhist belief,” she said. “I like educating myself and picking what works for me, which is the path of least harm. As long as you aren’t hurting anyone, you can do whatever the f*** you want.”
And what she wants to do is make a difference.
“I try to be of service in any little way that I can. Sometimes it looks like activism by going to a protest, or if my ambassadorship means a donation. It also means buying someone a meal, giving someone a ride home, or calling someone in need,” said Jackson, who serves as an ambassador for the Heal Los Angeles Foundation and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. “I try to be supportive to touch on different degrees of service, not just on a grander scale. The personal stuff is more day-to-day. For the bigger things, I do have a platform — and it seems pointless not to use it for something so important.”
