Who was Joe Jackson? Michael Jackson's 'tyrant' father who created pop dynasty
Who was Joe Jackson? Michael Jackson's 'tyrant' father who created pop dynasty
Dominic Utton & Eleanor TolbertSun, July 26, 2026 at 9:00 AM UTC
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Joe Jackson's family were barred from his deathbed in 2018 -Credit:GETTY IMAGES
As patriarch of the Jackson dynasty and father to 11 children, including Michael and his Jackson 5 bandmates, as well as Janet and La Toya, he masterminded the ascent of the modern era's most renowned musical family.
Yet he was also a domineering tyrant, unfaithful husband and, according to one of his daughters, an alleged child abuser who dedicated his twilight years to exploiting the fame of his most celebrated offspring.
Joe Jackson, who's birthday was July 26, died in 2018 at the age of 89 while battling terminal pancreatic cancer. Though the condition weakened him for months, he continued to wield his iron-fisted authority over his family until his last days. This comes as Janet Jackson recently channeled Michael at BET Awards in rare red carpet appearance.
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His son Jermaine, 71, said before Joe's death that family members, including wife Katherine, now 96, and daughters Rebbie, now 76, and Janet, now 60, had been blocked from seeing the ailing patriarch at his Las Vegas hospital.
"No one knew what was going on," Jermaine revealed in 2018, reports the Express. "We shouldn't have to beg, plead and argue to see our own father, especially at a time like this. We have been hurting."
"We were not being told where he was and couldn't get the full picture. Even from the doctor. My mother was worried sick. He's very, very frail, he doesn't have long. The family needs to be by his bedside. That's our only intention in his final days."
It's believed the directives came directly from Joe himself, in what could be interpreted as a final desperate bid to impose his will on his family, no matter the fallout. This is a characteristic Joe reinforced for decades.
During the 1960s and 1970s, as he guided The Jackson 5's transformation from a modest hometown family act to the world's biggest pop sensation, his approach was so strict that his children weren't even permitted to call him dad, being required instead to address him as Joseph.
He reportedly used corporal punishment regularly through whippings and beatings, and Michael Jackson once revealed that as a child he became so terrified of his father that he would vomit upon seeing him.
Joe Jackson allegedly beat and abused the Jackson children -Credit:WIREIMAGE
Joe later brushed off the allegation dismissively: "Yeah, he regurgitates all the way to the bank."
He also justified his parenting approach by stating: "I taught them to be tough. We raised them in a tough neighbourhood, where other kids were in gangs and getting into drugs.
"I didn't want them to be soft. I whipped him with a switch and a belt. I never beat him. You beat someone with a stick."
Born in 1928 in the small town of Fountain Hill, Arkansas, Joe's grandfather had been enslaved and he later characterized his childhood as "lonely" and with "few friends."
His parents split when he was 12, and after spending time with his father in California, he relocated to a Chicago suburb to live with his mother and four siblings, chasing his ambition of becoming a professional boxer.
While residing with his mum, he met and wed Katherine Scruse, a local woman. In 1950, the pair moved to nearby Gary, Indiana. Over the next 8 years welcomed eight children, the youngest being Michael, born in 1958.
The demands of supporting his family forced Joe to give up boxing for full-time employment, though he also played guitar in a blues outfit called The Falcons.
While frustrated by The Falcons' lack of breakthrough, Joe's luck shifted in 1962 when he discovered nine-year-old Tito playing with his guitar.
Despite initially threatening discipline for breaking a string, Joe was impressed when Tito continued playing. He urged Jermaine and Jackie to team up with Tito in forming a group, later bringing in Marlon, and ultimately Michael.
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Five years on, The Jackson 5 performed at New York's Apollo Theatre in Harlem, and in 1969 secured a deal with Motown Records.
Their debut single, I Want You Back, dropped that same year and rocketed straight to No. 1. The following four releases all topped the charts, with the group establishing a world record as the first musical act to sell 10 million records in 10 months.
The talented troupe of youngsters, fronted by an 11-year-old blessed with one of pop's most remarkable voices, had skyrocketed to stardom. For Joe, their manager, it was pure bliss.
Yet while television spots, glossy photo shoots and album covers portrayed a thriving, joyful family living the dream, behind closed doors the picture was starkly different.
Joe had moved the family to California and seized total authority over their daily existence. Right from the beginning he'd been an overbearing force, pushing his children through grueling rehearsals until they dropped, but by the 1970s his obsessive grip had turned violent.
Joe Jackson, father of Michael, Janet and La Toya, died in 2018 -Credit:GETTY IMAGES
Michael Jackson would later disclose how the kids faced whippings or beatings for missing choreography or singing off-key. He also shared how his father mocked his looks, branding him "ugly" and taunting him about his vitiligo skin condition.
On one occasion, Joe even snuck into his bedroom wearing a fright mask to teach his terrified son not to leave the window open when he was asleep.
As the decade closed though, Michael - by then a worldwide sensation in his own right - had wrestled back some independence, landing a solo contract and breaking free from his father's grip.
Joe then shifted his focus to his youngest daughter, Janet. While she has said he never physically abused her, she revealed in 2011 that in later years the two barely spoke, adding: "I wish our relationship was different.
"I think my father means well and wants nothing but the best his kids... but that is not necessarily the right way."
Yet Janet's older sister La Toya, now 70, offered a starkly different account in her 1991 autobiography, alleging that Joe not only physically abused his children but also sexually molested her and sister Rebbie.
"When your father gets out of bed with your mother and gets into bed with his daughter and you hear the mother saying, 'No, Joe, not tonight. Let her rest. Leave her alone, she's tired,' that makes you crazy," she wrote.
She subsequently expressed remorse over the claims: "I was young then and had a lot of people in my life that didn't need to be there. So I lashed out at my father, both of my parents really, because of things other people said."
While Joe stayed married to Katherine, he fathered another daughter in 1974, Joh'Vonnie, 51, with Cheryl Terrell, a secretary 20 years younger, with whom he had a 25-year affair.
In a 2018 interview, she characterized Joe as a "loving" father who frequently visited his secret family, showering her with gifts and tending the vegetable patch with her mother, who died in 2014.
However, despite his positive relationship with Joh'Vonnie, by the time Michael died in 2009, Joe had become largely estranged from the superstar family he'd helped build.
At the time, Katherine collected over $1 million each year from Michael's estate, but Joe was entirely excluded from his son's will.
Despite this, he reportedly attempted to profit from Michael's celebrity status before his 2018 death, allegedly charging $50,000 "appearance fees" to talk about his son, and even endeavoring to market a range of perfumes bearing Michael's image at a Las Vegas mall.
In one of his last interviews, Joe Jackson showed no remorse for his parenting methods. "I'm glad I was tough, because look what I came out with," he said.
"I came out with some kids that everybody loved all over the world."
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
