In an interview for the podcast "Call Her Daddy", hosted by Alex Cooper, published on August 12, 2026, Paris Jackson opens up about some of the most important periods and relationships of her life.

In the episode titled "Paris Jackson: Love, Loss, & Listening to Your Intuition," she speaks without much filter about her childhood spent in the public eye, her relationship with her parents, addiction, love, breakups, and her journey into music.

Paris recalls her childhood with her father, Michael Jackson, and life at Neverland, while also talking about her relationship with her mother, Debbie Rowe. She also touches on the loss of her father and the emotional moment she gave the eulogy at his funeral.

One of the most personal parts of the interview is her account of her addiction to alcohol and drugs. Paris reveals that she had reached a point where she could no longer stop and that she experienced a “bottom line” that forced her to confront herself. She talks about the process of recovery, the community she found during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the importance of connecting with other people. For her, recovery wasn’t just about quitting drugs, but also about building a new life and a healthier relationship with herself.

Paris also speaks openly about how personal healing has changed her relationships with friends and family. She says that by learning to take care of herself and face her wounds, she has created more space for intimacy, trust, and honest communication.

Essentially, this is an interview about the past that you can't change, but also about how you can choose to live beyond it, with more awareness, boundaries, self-love, and trust in intuition.

BELOW THE INTERVIEW: 

Music and childhood

Alex: You're only 28 years old. Music has been such a big part of your life. I know you have a new album coming out on August 21st and I want to talk about it. But to do that, we almost have to go back to the beginning, because you're someone who came into this world and music is literally in your blood. What are your earliest memories where music was a part of your life?

Paris: It's like asking a dolphin or any kind of fish, "What was it like when you got in the water?" Because music was always around me. I grew up with the Beatles catalog. I grew up with a lot of classical music. Music was always there.

Alex: For those who don't know, your father was Michael Jackson. And you grew up in a place called Neverland, which is so famous that people almost think they know what it means. It's known for the playground, the backyard zoo, and so on. But you lived there.

Alex: What was a normal day like in your childhood at Neverland?

Paris: Actually, I didn't grow up there. I was only there for the first few years of my life. I would wake up and go to school.

Alex: Homeschool, right?

Paris: Yes.

Alex: So you would wake up, go to the room that was the classroom, and do your schoolwork.

Paris: Yeah. And the thing that was very consistent throughout my childhood, which started there and continued everywhere we went, was this: if you behaved well, did your chores, did your homework and the things you had to do, then on the weekends you could go see the animals, ride the rides, and go to the movies. It had become very clear that all those rides were not for us and didn't belong to us. They were for kids from poor families and terminally ill kids who couldn't go to Disneyland. And that continued even later. At one point we wouldn't stay in one place for more than a year and we would change hotels all the time. If we lived in Las Vegas, it was, "Okay, if you behave well, you can go to Circus Circus this weekend." Or if we were somewhere in Virginia, "If you behave well, you can go to Chuck E. Cheese this weekend." It was the same with television. We weren't allowed to watch much TV or movies, except when we were studying for a film with the sound off, or during the weekend if we had done everything we needed to.

Alex: So you weren't running around in a playground when you were very little?

Paris: It would have been nice. But maybe I would have grown up and become an impatient person.

Alex: But you were disciplined. You had your lessons and maybe on the weekends you could see the animals at the zoo.

Paris: Yes.

Relationship with famous father

Alex: The world knew your father as the "King of Pop," but how would you describe your father?

Paris: He was a very cheerful man. He was my best friend.

 

Alex: Do you think your humor is similar to his or different?

Paris: I think our humor usually comes from our siblings and our parents. We usually get it from there. The place we grow up also influences it.

Alex: I think when you're the only girl in the family, maybe there's a kind of special treatment. Things where you can say, "I'm the only girl, so I can do this or that with my parent." Was there a favorite thing you did with your father just because you were the girl in the family?

Paris: There was an effort to make love feel equal for everyone. I noticed that he tried very hard to treat us all the same. But I was definitely "daddy's little princess."

I think it just happens between boys and mothers or fathers and daughters. There's a special bond that you can't explain in words. But it's a little annoying when you grow up. When we started going to regular school, my brothers could sleep over at their friends' houses, while I could only bring my friends. There are some rules where boys are given a little more freedom.

Relationship with mother

Alex: You didn't grow up with your mother. You didn't have a relationship with her when you were little, did you? How did they explain that to you when you were a child?

Paris: At some point, when I was about 10 or 11, I started asking about her. The answers I got were enough for me. Then we hooked up when I was about 15 and started getting closer and closer towards the end of my teens. I remember going downstairs and she was in the living room with my grandmother. I went in and said, “Hey, Mom.” And she said, “Hi.” I sat down, we talked for a bit.

Then we went out and spent the day together. What I think is really interesting about the way I function, in general, is learning that expectations get in the way. If I go into a relationship with expectations, there's a good chance I'll end up disappointed, frustrated, irritated, or resentful. When I go into something without expectations, it creates a really interesting space where something organic can develop on its own.

When he realized how famous his father was

Alex: You've said something very interesting before: that you didn't immediately realize that your father was famous. You've even said publicly: "I didn't even know his name was Michael." How did you start to understand it?

Paris: I knew he was famous. I just didn't know how famous he was.

There were times when I would look out the hotel window and it was one of those times when the nickname we were using didn't work. I would see a sea of ​​people holding signs and things like that. I wasn't naive enough to think, "Yeah, everyone experiences this." I just didn't understand the scale of things.

 The masks worn by the Jackson children

Alex: One of the things that people were obsessed with was the fact that your father made you and your brothers wear masks and cover your faces when you went out in public. How did you understand that as a kid? How did you think, “Okay, we have to put on masks”?

Paris: It made sense to me. It was, “If we do this now, then on the weekend we can go to Chuck E. Cheese and act normal, because no one will know who we are.” That made sense to me. But it made the press really angry.

Alex: I think people probably felt like they had a right to you because your father was such a big figure. Like he was “ours” and we had a right to comment on him and see him. And then they thought the kids should see him too, because you were part of that image too. But it was actually a way to protect you. Did it ever feel scary when you went out with the mask on and people were trying to see your face?

Paris: I don't know. I'm trying to think: what scared me when I was a kid? Spiders. Getting lost. But I don't know if that was scary to me. I always felt protected. We always had security. Sometimes the crowds got a little crazy, but there was always that kind of security where you could hold on to an adult.

The death of Michael Jackson

Alex: You were 11 years old when your father died and you spoke at his memorial. What do you remember from that day?

Paris: Last year I did a very interesting exercise, which I think really helped me change my perspective on life.

I wrote a short story, about two pages, about my life from the victim's perspective.

Then I sat down with her. And I wrote two more pages. The same stories, but not from the victim's perspective. This time I looked at them from a more distant perspective. I tried to look at the scary things that had happened to me, the hardships and everything, and ask myself, "Which of these were the starting points?" "What were the moments that pushed me to jump in a different direction?" "What were the little pieces that would later turn into something that could serve other people?" So a lot of the way I look at things like this now is, "Maybe this was some kind of energetic initiation that I needed to move forward on my path." I was talking to my mom about this the other day. She always told me that terrible things can happen to you, but you have to choose whether you're going to live with the victim mentality. Because if you live like that, you're basically saying, "I have no control over my life." There are moments when you have no control and something happens to you. At that moment you are a victim. But to live forever with a victim mentality is to deprive yourself of any opportunity to have power. Then, where do you find the space to stand up and say: “No. Now I am in control. What do I do now?” Otherwise, others are always in control and you have no control over your life.

Alex: I understand what you're saying. At some point it becomes my responsibility to heal, to take care of myself, and to say, "Okay, this terrible thing happened. How can I use this to serve someone else?"

Paris: Exactly. And in a way, that requires you to put yourself first. That feeds my purpose in life. It gives me life. That's why I don't like the idea of ​​regret.

Speech at father's funeral

Alex: When you were so young, was there any discussion about whether you would speak at the memorial, or did you just decide on your own?

Paris: It just happened at that moment. It was on stage. Someone looked and was like, “Is one of the kids going to say something?” And no one moved. So I said, “To hell with it! I’ll do it!” And it just happened.

Alex: Did you feel pressure at that moment?

Paris: When all eyes turn to you and say, “Someone has to say something,” I don’t know. I haven’t watched the video again to understand how fast it happened. But it felt like everything was happening very slowly to me. I was thinking, “Someone has to say something. Little brother won’t do it. Big brother isn’t moving. Okay…”

Alex: And you spoke from the heart.

Paris: Yes.

Life after the death of the father

Alex: After that moment, it seems like everything in your life changed. You went to live with your grandmother, right?

What was that period like? You were experiencing grief, loss, and at the same time everyone was looking at you publicly.

Paris: It was very difficult. I had no social skills. I had spent time with cousins, brothers, and adults. I didn't really know how to interact with people my own age. So I had a crash course in social skills.

Alex: I think you also talked about the fact that you spent a lot of time with older people. How do you think that made you grow up faster than your peers?

Paris: I don't know. I think I was into the idea of ​​"living fast and intensely." I wanted to grow up fast. There was something inside me that wanted to experience as much of life as possible. And I think that probably contributed to some not-so-good choices in early adulthood. But I just wanted to experience everything.

Addiction and the moment he decided to get sober

Paris says she had reached a point where she couldn't stop, even with marijuana and alcohol. Things were getting worse, and she reached what she calls her "breaking point" / "bottom" — the final point where she realized she couldn't go on like this anymore. After that, she started thinking: "What do I do now? How do I rebuild my foundation?" She was looking for a new way of life: a daily routine that would keep her healthy, develop a spiritual life, and find ways to be of service to others. This happened during COVID, which made the situation even more unusual. But Paris says that, surprisingly, that period also brought her something very good: she found a community of people around her age who were also in the early stages of sobriety. They spent almost every day together. There was a special kind of understanding: "I know what you're going through, and you know what I'm going through." And it's here that she emphasizes the importance of community and connection with people. It also mentions the idea that: “The opposite of addiction is connection.” So for Paris, overcoming addiction wasn’t just about “stopping drugs and alcohol.” It was also about building a new life — community, routine, spirituality, service to others, and, above all, real connections with people.

After getting sober, she began working on her relationship with herself, and that has changed her friendships, family, love, and the way she makes music. Paris explains that after recovering, the biggest change was not just quitting drugs and alcohol, but learning how to be in a healthier relationship with herself. She says that over the past year, she has seen very clearly how the way she treats herself has created a ripple effect in her relationships with friends and family. For example, with her best friend of 10 years, they are now able to have difficult conversations, be more honest, and create more trust, closeness, and intimacy. A very strong idea that comes up in the conversation is that you can’t expect a partner to “fill” an inner void.

Paris says, in essence: Even if the other person gives you all the security, care, and validation you need, if the wound is inside you, it still won't be enough. So your partner can help you, but they can't do the work you need to do with yourself. This also ties into her breakup. After her last relationship, she decided not to immediately get into another relationship. She didn't want to date, flirt, hook up, or even those little things that can instantly create a sense of validation. She describes it as a "full reset." And that gave her the space to ask herself: "What really makes me happy? What do I want? Am I listening to my intuition?" It's here that she says she began to realize that her needs aren't something she should apologize for. If a need is truly important to her, she's allowed to be a non-negotiable.

 Music, album and new way of writing

This part is really interesting because Paris says that her recovery has also changed the way she writes music. Before, she says, most of her songs were about boys, breakups, heartbreak, drugs. Now she's writing from a much more personal place. And that's one of the biggest changes in her art: she's no longer trying to make the song about everyone's story. She's telling her own story, in very personal detail. Then the conversation moves to "Zombies in Love," where she talks about a relationship built around drugs and escaping reality.

Looking back now, she realizes that the relationship couldn’t have been sustainable, especially since they were both using heroin. But she emphasizes that when she got sober, her first focus wasn’t “How do I save this relationship?” It was, “I just got sober. I need to deal with myself and my addiction.” Later, after another breakup, the challenge was deeper: how to keep from falling back into old ways of coping with pain.

And this is where all the themes, recovery, self-love, separation, and music, connect. She seems to be saying that she is now creating from a place where she is no longer trying to numb the pain, but is experiencing it and turning it into art.