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Joe Jackson admits beating his children

By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 9 November 2010

Michael Jackson’s father has admitted using corporal punishment to discipline his children. Joe Jackson has often previously denied claims made by his superstar son that he was beaten by his father as a child, but the Jackson family patriarch has now admitted to using such discipline methods in a new TV interview with Oprah Winfrey. It was in an interview with Winfrey in 1993 that Jacko himself first opened up about being beaten in his childhood. 

Joe appeared in the previously reported Oprah special, which aired yesterday, and which was filmed in the grounds of the Jackson family home. Michael Jackson’s three children also appeared. Joe initially tried to side step the issue when it was raised by Winfrey in the new programme, but his wife Katherine said “You might as well admit it, that’s the way black people raised their children … he used a strap”. 

With some confused tenses, Mr Jackson then said: “I would have punished by whipping them with a strap, or something, if they did something wrong. It would have kept them outta trouble, outta jail. My kids have never been in jail before… and that’s great”. Asked by Winfrey if he regretted his actions, Joe said: “No, I don’t regret it”. 

Elsewhere in the interview Katherine Jackson, who denied the widely held belief that she is separated from husband Joe, talked about the late king of pop’s addiction to plastic surgery and how that backfired, adding that it began because Michael genuinely believed he was ugly. She added: “I hear that people get addicted to plastic surgery and I think that’s what happened to him. I had told him ‘That’s enough. Why do you keep going?’ I even talked to the plastic surgeon and said: ‘If he comes there and he wants you to work on his nose just tell him you did it and do the same thing and don’t change it'”.