http://www.latimes.com/enterta…p-20161026-htmlstory.html
How Prince, Paris or the youngest, Prince Michael II, would be affected by the things they would read or hear about their father was a chief family concern.
“I knew because [Prince] had spent time with his dad and was close to him that he knew inside he didn’t believe it,” Taj says of the numerous accusations.
When asked how he and his siblings navigated the allegations and sensational stories, Jackson is candid: “It was a shock,” he says. “It all came at once. But [we] learned how to deal with it by just kind of ignoring it.”
Jackson dismisses many of the allegations as attempts at extortion.
He knows his life has been, in his words, “unconventional,” but he seems at peace with most of it, including the fact that Jackson’s biological mother, Debbie Rowe, terminated her parental rights in 2001. The two do not have a relationship.
Prince Jackson, left, and Katherine Jackson arrive at the world premiere of "Michael Jackson ONE" at THEhotel at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.
“I'm very lucky to have two mother figures in my life, my grandmother and my cousin Frances. As for my birth mother, she's always been more of a friend, and that works for us,” he says. “You could say my whole life has been unconventional. I really love that though, and it's all I've ever known.”
He understands the choices his father made as a parent. “My dad spoke to me like an adult. He told us the reason for the masks was he wanted us to have our own life without him,” Jackson said, noting he and his siblings could often go out without their father unbothered because they were unrecognizable.
“I don’t think I ever thought about if other kids lived like that when I was younger. But once I knew who he was, I realized it wasn’t normal.
“I remember being in Disneyland and I went to the window and there were all these fans waving and taking pictures of me. I thought it was normal, so I just waved back,” he continued. “It wasn’t until I saw a video of him performing and people were fainting and passing out, when I realized the work he did meant a lot to people.”
Today, a commitment to jujitsu is Jackson’s preferred method of coping with the loss of his father (he’s even got the colorful logo of the jujitsu academy he attends inked on his back leg). A grief class he took during his first semester of college helped. “I don’t think it’s anything you ever get over. It’s always going to be a part of your life that’s missing,” Jackson said.
“The way I cope with it is incorporating him into my life in every way — from my company logo having little bits of him [to] using his metaphors and trying to follow everything he taught us,” he continued. “My brother and my sister, we’ve all coped differently. I’ve gotten better the older I get.”
Growing up he remembers his father proudly showing him “Thriller” and “Moonwalker” — two of Michael’s most visionary approaches to long-form music videos— and the two would also spend lazy afternoons binge-watching films and dissecting them. The “James Bond” series and horror were among shared favorites, and they would watch epics like “King Kong” and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy with the sound turned off and Michael would point out different shots.
Watching his dad in action, filming videos intended for Michael’s “This Is It” London residency (the superstar was rehearsing for those shows when he died at age 50), cemented Jackson’s career goal.
“That’s when I knew it was what I wanted to do,” He recalled during a visit to his Marina del Rey apartment. “I loved the thrill of it. I was able to talk to so many people on set — those doing the lighting or the assistant cameramen. I learned so much.”
While attending high school at the private Buckley School in Sherman Oaks he dabbled in theater, taking acting classes, learning sound design, building sets and working as a stagehand, and when he enrolled at Loyola Marymount University majoring in film was the obvious choice — until he talked himself out of it.
He decided to major in business.
There was a brief flirtation with being in front of the camera. In 2013, Jackson worked as a celebrity correspondent for “Entertainment Tonight” and made his acting debut with a cameo on the CW’s teen drama “90210.”
“He didn’t really want to be an actor,” said Duane Ervin, one of Jackson’s closest friends and his former classmate. “He’s always wanted to be behind the scenes.”
During his first semester at Loyola Marymount late last year, a longtime family friend Omer "O-Bee" Bhatti played Jackson his new record, a club banger titled “Automatic.”
Jackson saw it as an opportunity to launch the company, which at that point was nothing but a name in his head.
Launching the company with a Bhatti project was essential for Jackson.
Inspired by the dazzling, cinematic visuals that solidified Michael as a singular force in the early ’80s, they brainstormed ideas for a high octane music video and Jackson proposed to produce it. By February, Jackson had registered the company as a limited liability corporation and filming began.
“I was there for his first step, his first words. I used to change his diapers. And now he’s producing my video?” Bhatti, 31, joked over cocktails while visiting L.A. “He’s like my brother, but I would have never thought about us collaborating professionally.”
The production was primarily filmed at Hayvenhurst, but that wasn’t the plan. Jackson learned his first lesson in the perils of producing after realizing the original locations (an airport and an abandoned mall) would implode the production’s budget.
Although his dad went through painstaking lengths to protect him from fame, Jackson’s family is supportive of his foray into entertainment.
“Prince is extremely smart. He’s gonna be a target because people have the wrong impression that he’s a privileged kid and it’s the furthest thing from the truth,” Taj Jackson said. “When you grow up being around celebrity [your] whole life, there’s two ways it can go for the kids — they can be full of entitlement or grounded and realize that they are like everyone else. It comes down to character and with Prince, his dad instilled that.”
"I can never be separated from my father. He set that big of an example. I’m proud to have his name and to be his son. This is just me going my own direction," Michael Joseph "Prince" Jackson said.
At Hayvenhurst, Jackson is seated on the edge of a piano in his father’s old bedroom as wooden blinds cast a shadow over him. The image of Jackson, partially hidden in a shadow, serves as an apt metaphor.
The vision for King's Son Productions is to eventually tackle film, something his father planned on pursuing more aggressively after “This Is It.” He has a working relationship with his father’s estate and hopes to one day collaborate on a posthumous project through his company, though there are no current plans.
Jackson recently produced his second music video, a visual for Brazilian sister group the Sco Triplets (member Thayana is married to Taj) and is working on a project for the new Shriners Hospital for Children opening in Pasadena next year.
He began his sophomore year of studies on what would have been Michael’s 58th birthday. (Another sign of his father’s continued guidance, he joked.)
Jackson plans on balancing studies and his fledgling business with work on a service organization he and a classmate established on campus that was inspired by the charity work his father did with his Heal the World Foundation.
“Honestly, I’m just going with the flow. I’m still young, my ideas can change,” Jackson said. “I can never be separated from my father — he set that big of an example. And I don’t really have a problem with that. I’m proud to have his name and to be his son.”
Jackson settles into a corner of the shrine, where he’s surrounded by a dozen or so portraits of aunts, uncles and his late father. He’s admittedly nervous about having to do a photo shoot — it’s not something he’s the most comfortable with, he confides. Paris pokes her head into the room to check on her brother, plopping down on a couch to catch up before the two begin joking about his jitters in front of the camera. “Smolder,” Paris instructs.
Jackson tries, and they both begin to giggle.
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