Michael Jackson’s Parents Talk to Oprah: Beatings, Drugs, Surgery and Death

The interview that Michael Jackson’s parents, Joe and Katherine Jackson, taped with Oprah earlier this year, is out. It’s an emotional piece, meant to shed some light into the late singer’s childhood, life, supposed drug addiction and, eventually, death.

The first part of the interview, as the videos below will also confirm, is only with Katherine. For the first time since her son’s death in the summer of 2009, the matriarch opens up about Michael’s addiction to plastic surgery and the day she learned he died, among others.

Michael would ever only admit to just 2 surgical interventions, both on his nose, more for health reasons than on aesthetic considerations.

His mother is now saying that the late star actually had several interventions, to the point where, she believes, he became addicted to plastic surgery.

Michael Jackson was extremely unhappy, his mother recalls, and he believed it all boiled down to his being “ugly,” which is why he would constantly try to change things, especially about his face.

“He’d say ‘I’m just so ugly, I don’t want to go out there.’ […] One day he just got up and decided ‘I’m going to get my nose done. It’s too big’,” Katherine says.

“He had more than two [interventions on his nose], he was just embarrassed. It was like a toothpick at one time. I thought it was too small. I hear that people get addicted to plastic surgery and I think that’s what happened to him,” Katherine adds.

She tried to make him stop, by repeatedly talking to him and trying to explain to him that he needn’t change anything about his face anymore, but Michael wouldn’t listen.

However, the most emotional part of the interview is where Katherine speaks about how she learned Michael had died. It was the most horrible day of her life, she says.

“My heart dropped. And so they called me and said ‘Come to the hospital. Michael’s in the hospital.’ They made the doctor tell me. The doctor had to tell us... Dr. [Conrad] Murray. He came out, and he was talking and it took him so long. He said, ‘No, he’s gone.’ That’s all I remember. I’m sorry,” Katherine says.

In the second part of the interview, Joe Jackson, Michael’s estranged father, also makes an appearance to tackle the ever-present question of whether he beat Michael as a kid and, most importantly, if he’s sorry about it.

Joe takes offence of the term “beat” because, he says, he did not punch or kick Michael: he used a strap instead to discipline him. That’s the way all black people raised their kids back then, Katherine intervenes.

As for feeling sorry for being stricter with his kids, far be it from Joe because he’s convinced it’s the only thing that kept all his 9 children out of jail and basically out of trouble.

“I don’t [regret it]. It kept them out of jail and kept them right. I don’t think he was afraid of me. What he was afraid of, he may do something wrong and I’d chastise him but not beat him. I never beat him like the media tried to say,” Joe defends himself.

Below is part 1 and part 2 of the interview Oprah Winfrey conducted with Katherine and Joe Jackson at the Jackson home. 

Part 1



Part 2