Paris Jackson’s New Interview: She discusses learning boundaries, Neverland, the masks, her trauma, and her healing
Summary:
Paris makes a point to only share her own experience and never gives suggestions or advice to others, saying, "I never tell people what to do."
She also says "Everything happens for a reason. Whether I'm going to see that reason now or I'm going to see it in 50 years... one day it's going to make sense." Quoting Ram Dass, she says anytime we identify with labels or roles given to us by others, we are in the "victim" role. When we shed those roles and get to our true essence, we are in the "creator" role.
She goes on to say "Learning how expectations kind of fuck us up." If she walks into a relationship without expectations, it creates a cool space for organic blossoming.
Paris recalled meeting her mom at 15. She wasn't nervous. She walked downstairs, saw her mom in the living room with her grandma, and immediately said, "Hey, mom." They talked and went out for the day. She notes they are very similar because they both have "fire" (Debbie is a Sagittarius, and Paris mentions her Aries fire in this specific context). She also recalled a conversation with her mom about victim mentality. Debbie told her that horrible things can happen, but if you choose to live in victim mentality, you are essentially saying you have no autonomy over your life.
She admits there are certain things she may not want to talk about in an interview or on her Instagram. However, when it comes to her art (music), she is going to be completely honest and share her experience.
Paris clarified that she only lived at Neverland for the first few years of her life. She said it was made "very, very clear" that the amusement park rides and the zoo did not belong to her and her brothers. "That was for underprivileged children and children that were terminally ill that couldn't go to like Disneyland." (To me hearing her say this out loud just reinforces exactly what Wade and James described about how Michael used the ranch as a grooming tool)
Alex asked about the masks Michael made the kids wear in public. Paris said it "made sense" to her as a kid because she was told if they wore masks, they could do normal things like go to Chuck-E-Cheese on the weekends. She said she always felt protected and had adults/security to grab onto. She said speaking at MJ's memorial at 11 years old wasn't planned. The family was on stage, someone asked if the kids wanted to speak, and when her brothers didn't move, she said, "Fuck it. We ball," and just spoke from the heart.
After Michael died, she went to live with her grandmother. She described this time as "rough" because she had been homeschooled and only interacted with adults, so she had a "crash course in gaining social skills." She traces her "addictive personality" and "graspiness" back to age 7-9, reaching for things outside herself to manage her feelings, which escalated to heroin addiction in her late teens/early adulthood.
Paris discussed how her lack of a normal upbringing affected her relationships, admitting she had no concept of boundaries when she was younger. She explained: "I definitely had issues with boundaries when I was younger. We're just like whatever, whoever kind of thing. Like I had hooked up with friends when I was younger and and realized that hey, you know, just because this is a really great friendship and we're in a really good place doesn't mean we need to take it further to make it better. And I've just learned that, you know, that's not for, you know, I just I have I'm learning boundaries and I'm learning that."
Paris says she has been sober for six years (since the first week of 2020). She did a really interesting exercise recently where she wrote her life story from the perspective of a "victim," and then rewrote it from a "zoomed out" perspective to find points of "initiation" and how her trauma could be "alchemized into medicine for other people." She credits her sobriety, setting strict boundaries, and a "no-contact" rule after her last breakup for making this the happiest year of her life.