Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Joe Jackson: 'We're the parents. This is where they belong.'
At a press conference outside the family estate in Encino, Calif., Monday afternoon, Joe Jackson reiterated that Michael Jackson's three children belong with their grandmother, Katherine, who was awarded temporary custody earlier today. "We're the parents. This is where they belong... We're going to take care of them and give them the education they're supposed to have," he said. This morning, Jackson family lawyer Londell McMillan said he didn't believe Debbie Rowe, the mother of Michael's two eldest, would try to separate the children from each other or Katherine, who has taken care of them since Michael's June 25 death. "Debbie Rowe has nothing to do with what we're doing," Joe said at the press conference. He also stated that memorial plans for Michael are still being worked out, and that there is no timeframe he could give the public. He said he wants the investigation into Michael's death to be completed before his son's funeral is held.
Biography
Joseph Walter "Joe" Jackson (born July 26, 1928 in Fountain Hill, Arkansas, United States) is an American talent manager, former boxer and former musician best known as the father of American entertainers Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson, and the creator and manager of The Jackson 5, a Motown group comprising several of his children.
Early life
Joseph Jackson was born in Arkansas, the eldest of four to Samuel Jackson and Crystal Lee King. His parents separated when he was 12. He moved with his father to Oakland, California, where he lived until after turning 18 when he moved to East Chicago, Indiana, to live near his mother. While there, he met his future wife Katherine Scruse. After a brief marriage to another woman and then an annulment, Joseph and Katherine began a courtship resulting in their November 5, 1949 wedding. Settling in Gary, Indiana, Joseph, a former boxer, worked full-time as a crane operator at Gary's U.S. Steel company, while Katherine tended to their children. In the mid-1950s, Joseph started a music career with his brother Luther, playing guitar in a band called The Falcons. The group split up a couple of years later after failing to get a recording deal. Joseph returned full time to his job at U.S. Steel.
Current work
Joseph is currently hosting a boot camp for aspiring hip-hop artists, both to move his career to the next stage and to change what he sees as distasteful about the genre.
Early life
Joseph Jackson was born in Arkansas, the eldest of four to Samuel Jackson and Crystal Lee King. His parents separated when he was 12. He moved with his father to Oakland, California, where he lived until after turning 18 when he moved to East Chicago, Indiana, to live near his mother. While there, he met his future wife Katherine Scruse. After a brief marriage to another woman and then an annulment, Joseph and Katherine began a courtship resulting in their November 5, 1949 wedding. Settling in Gary, Indiana, Joseph, a former boxer, worked full-time as a crane operator at Gary's U.S. Steel company, while Katherine tended to their children. In the mid-1950s, Joseph started a music career with his brother Luther, playing guitar in a band called The Falcons. The group split up a couple of years later after failing to get a recording deal. Joseph returned full time to his job at U.S. Steel.
Current work
Joseph is currently hosting a boot camp for aspiring hip-hop artists, both to move his career to the next stage and to change what he sees as distasteful about the genre.
Joe Jackson Family
When ABC wanted to make a miniseries about the Jackson family's life in 1992, Michael Jackson had one major requirement before he would give his blessing: Someone beautiful had to play his mother.
The pop superstar adored Katherine Jackson, who ended up being portrayed by Angela Bassett in the miniseries. Jackson's will designates her as the guardian of his three children, and she, along with his kids and children's charities, inherit his family trust, according to a source who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak about the matter.
Katherine Jackson had sought to retain control of Jackson's assets, but a judge ruled Monday that attorney John Branca and music executive John McClain had been designated in Jackson's 2002 will as the people he wanted to administer his estate.
Jackson died June 25, deeply in debt. But a court filing estimates his estate will be worth more than $500 million.
He had a fractious relationship at times with various family members and other confidants, but friends say Jackson saw his mother as the one flawless, angelic constant in his life.
A Jehovah's Witness, Katherine Jackson, 79, is universally described as a gentle, loving matriarch who has doted on her family and fought to keep them united through tough times.
Born Katherine Scruse, she was reared in Chicago and overcame polio as a child (she still walks with a slight limp). She married Joe Jackson at age 19, and they had 10 children (Marlon Jackson had a twin who died shortly after birth) in nearby Gary, Ind.
Katherine and Joe Jackson are still married and recently marked their 60th anniversary. But their relationship has long been difficult and they have not lived together for years, according to a close friend of the singer who did not want to be identified because the person was not authorized to discuss the family.
Though it was Joe Jackson who managed Michael Jackson and his brothers to early stardom, Michael credited his mother with giving him his vocal gifts. He described her as a pianist and singer in her own right who was the first to identify and encourage her children's musical talents.
"Every child thinks their mother is the greatest mother in the world, but we Jacksons never lost that feeling," Jackson wrote in "Moonwalk," his 1988 autobiography. "Because of Katherine's gentleness, warmth and attention, I can't imagine what it's like to grow up without a mother's love."
Michael Jackson's three children have not had their biological mothers in their lives. But people close to the Jacksons say Katherine Jackson has an incredibly close relationship with her grandchildren, perhaps more than anyone else in her late son's life.
"She was never out of favor (with Michael), so she was able to spend a lot more time with the kids than anybody else," said J. Randy Taraborrelli, a friend of Jackson and author of the biography "The Magic and the Madness."
Katherine Jackson was by her son's side through some of his greatest triumphs and tragedies, from his stunning "Thriller" success to his 2005 acquittal of child molestation charges.
"They just loved each other unconditionally," said Taraborrelli. "Even when he was illogical in some of his decisions ... she didn't care, she just defended him and supported him without reservation his entire life."
Michael Jackson lived with his mother, along with siblings Joe, Janet and LaToya, at the family's Encino, Calif., compound until he was almost 30. After he moved to his vast Neverland estate, his mother remained part of his inner circle.
L. Londell McMillan, who is part of the legal team representing Katherine Jackson in her bid to control Jackson's estate, said Jackson trusted his mother completely and wanted to make sure she was always well provided.
"Michael would often say to those of us in his life, 'Please make sure you help me to protect and take care of my children and my mother Katherine,'" McMillan said.
Rob Goldstone, a former Jackson publicist who spent time on the road with him during his 1989 "Bad" tour, described him as "a momma's boy. He loved his mom."
"The one thing that was very apparent that everywhere we went, he would want to go shopping and buy something, and his mom was the one he wanted to buy something special for," he recalled.
Jackson's relationship with his mother was the opposite of what he had with his father, who managed Michael and his children's careers until they reached adulthood and business ties were severed.
Michael Jackson had a complicated relationship with Joe Jackson. He had described his father as physically and emotionally abusive. Even the sight of Joe Jackson would sometimes make Michael so nervous he would vomit, the son had said.
Joe Jackson was the parental figure who spent the most time with Jackson during his formative years. Katherine Jackson didn't go out on the road with the Jackson 5, staying at home to raise LaToya, Janet and Randy.
But the mild-mannered mother would stand up to her husband and defend their children when she thought things were getting out of control, Taraborrelli said.
"She's very strong, and a very powerful woman who would stand up to Joe," he said. "That's the only reason why it worked. ... She had the tenacity to defy him when it really mattered."
Though the pair do not live together, their lives are still intertwined. Ten years ago, they filed for bankruptcy, listing nearly $24 million in debts that included court judgments, auto loans and credit cards. Court records show the only valuable asset listed was a house in Las Vegas then valued at $290,000.
Now that Katherine Jackson has been granted temporary guardianship of her grandchildren, some wonder what influence Joe Jackson might play in the grandchildren's lives. A person with knowledge of the situation, who asked not to be identified because the person was not authorized to talk about the relationship, said the children have a loving relationship with their grandfather, but said that Katherine Jackson would be their primary caregiver.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson said she has already assumed that role, shopping for clothes for her grandchildren over the weekend.
"She's doing very well," he said Sunday. "She is the matriarch of this family. She is so deep in her religion. She has a real insulation, not an isolation, kind of a spiritual, so she sees her family in the broader sense and all of them kind of gravitating a certain way to mom as they were."
The pop superstar adored Katherine Jackson, who ended up being portrayed by Angela Bassett in the miniseries. Jackson's will designates her as the guardian of his three children, and she, along with his kids and children's charities, inherit his family trust, according to a source who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak about the matter.
Katherine Jackson had sought to retain control of Jackson's assets, but a judge ruled Monday that attorney John Branca and music executive John McClain had been designated in Jackson's 2002 will as the people he wanted to administer his estate.
Jackson died June 25, deeply in debt. But a court filing estimates his estate will be worth more than $500 million.
He had a fractious relationship at times with various family members and other confidants, but friends say Jackson saw his mother as the one flawless, angelic constant in his life.
A Jehovah's Witness, Katherine Jackson, 79, is universally described as a gentle, loving matriarch who has doted on her family and fought to keep them united through tough times.
Born Katherine Scruse, she was reared in Chicago and overcame polio as a child (she still walks with a slight limp). She married Joe Jackson at age 19, and they had 10 children (Marlon Jackson had a twin who died shortly after birth) in nearby Gary, Ind.
Katherine and Joe Jackson are still married and recently marked their 60th anniversary. But their relationship has long been difficult and they have not lived together for years, according to a close friend of the singer who did not want to be identified because the person was not authorized to discuss the family.
Though it was Joe Jackson who managed Michael Jackson and his brothers to early stardom, Michael credited his mother with giving him his vocal gifts. He described her as a pianist and singer in her own right who was the first to identify and encourage her children's musical talents.
"Every child thinks their mother is the greatest mother in the world, but we Jacksons never lost that feeling," Jackson wrote in "Moonwalk," his 1988 autobiography. "Because of Katherine's gentleness, warmth and attention, I can't imagine what it's like to grow up without a mother's love."
Michael Jackson's three children have not had their biological mothers in their lives. But people close to the Jacksons say Katherine Jackson has an incredibly close relationship with her grandchildren, perhaps more than anyone else in her late son's life.
"She was never out of favor (with Michael), so she was able to spend a lot more time with the kids than anybody else," said J. Randy Taraborrelli, a friend of Jackson and author of the biography "The Magic and the Madness."
Katherine Jackson was by her son's side through some of his greatest triumphs and tragedies, from his stunning "Thriller" success to his 2005 acquittal of child molestation charges.
"They just loved each other unconditionally," said Taraborrelli. "Even when he was illogical in some of his decisions ... she didn't care, she just defended him and supported him without reservation his entire life."
Michael Jackson lived with his mother, along with siblings Joe, Janet and LaToya, at the family's Encino, Calif., compound until he was almost 30. After he moved to his vast Neverland estate, his mother remained part of his inner circle.
L. Londell McMillan, who is part of the legal team representing Katherine Jackson in her bid to control Jackson's estate, said Jackson trusted his mother completely and wanted to make sure she was always well provided.
"Michael would often say to those of us in his life, 'Please make sure you help me to protect and take care of my children and my mother Katherine,'" McMillan said.
Rob Goldstone, a former Jackson publicist who spent time on the road with him during his 1989 "Bad" tour, described him as "a momma's boy. He loved his mom."
"The one thing that was very apparent that everywhere we went, he would want to go shopping and buy something, and his mom was the one he wanted to buy something special for," he recalled.
Jackson's relationship with his mother was the opposite of what he had with his father, who managed Michael and his children's careers until they reached adulthood and business ties were severed.
Michael Jackson had a complicated relationship with Joe Jackson. He had described his father as physically and emotionally abusive. Even the sight of Joe Jackson would sometimes make Michael so nervous he would vomit, the son had said.
Joe Jackson was the parental figure who spent the most time with Jackson during his formative years. Katherine Jackson didn't go out on the road with the Jackson 5, staying at home to raise LaToya, Janet and Randy.
But the mild-mannered mother would stand up to her husband and defend their children when she thought things were getting out of control, Taraborrelli said.
"She's very strong, and a very powerful woman who would stand up to Joe," he said. "That's the only reason why it worked. ... She had the tenacity to defy him when it really mattered."
Though the pair do not live together, their lives are still intertwined. Ten years ago, they filed for bankruptcy, listing nearly $24 million in debts that included court judgments, auto loans and credit cards. Court records show the only valuable asset listed was a house in Las Vegas then valued at $290,000.
Now that Katherine Jackson has been granted temporary guardianship of her grandchildren, some wonder what influence Joe Jackson might play in the grandchildren's lives. A person with knowledge of the situation, who asked not to be identified because the person was not authorized to talk about the relationship, said the children have a loving relationship with their grandfather, but said that Katherine Jackson would be their primary caregiver.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson said she has already assumed that role, shopping for clothes for her grandchildren over the weekend.
"She's doing very well," he said Sunday. "She is the matriarch of this family. She is so deep in her religion. She has a real insulation, not an isolation, kind of a spiritual, so she sees her family in the broader sense and all of them kind of gravitating a certain way to mom as they were."
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