Paris Jackson is definitely making 2017 her own. The daughter of Michael Jackson was already revealed as the new face of Chanel. But her life has been far from plain sailing. From losing her father at a young age to suffering from severe depression. In her most revealing interview to date, Paris shares her life story with Rolling Stone. Here’s all you need to know…
**1. On life with Michael Jackson **
For the first seven years of her life, Paris and her brother Prince were home-schooled from their father’s estate in Neverland. They literally grew up on a theme park.
Paris has only fond memories about this time and explains why she chose to be home-schooled. ‘When you’re at home your dad, who you love more than anything, will occasionally come in, in the middle of class, and it’s like, “Cool, no more class for the day. We’re gonna go hang out with Dad.”’
But wasn’t this a rather isolating experience? Apparently not. ‘We were like, “We don’t need friends. We’ve got you and Disney Channel!”’
2. On the loss of her father
Clearly, Paris was very close to her father. So when she lost Michael at the age of 11, it hit her hard. It’s something she has never quite recovered from.
‘They always say time heals, but it really doesn’t. You just get used to it. I live life with the mentality of “OK, I lost the only thing that has ever been Important to me.” So, going forward, anything bad that happens can’t be nearly as bad as what happened before.’
**3. On how her father died **
Perhaps part of the reason that Paris can’t get any closure on her father’s death, is her belief that he was murdered.
In the interview she is asked if she believes Michael Jackson was murdered and she answers, ‘Absolutely. Because it’s obvious. All arrows point to that. It sounds like a total conspiracy theory and it sounds like bullshit, but all real fans and everybody in the family knows. It was a setup.’
Apparently her father had predicted he would have an untimely death. ‘He would drop hints about people being out to get him. And at some point he was like “They’re gonna kill me one day.”’
**4. On mental health **
In June 2013, at the age of just 15, Paris tried to kill herself with a drugs overdose. At the time, she was heavily dependent on drugs and had spiralled into depression.
‘It was just self-hatred – low self-esteem, thinking that I couldn’t do anything right, not thinking I was worthy of living anymore’
She says this is not the first time she had attempted to end her own life, but it was the first time it was made public. She also regularly self-harmed.
‘I was crazy. I was actually crazy. I was going through a lot of, like, teen angst. And I was also dealing with my depression and my anxiety without any help’
On top of this, Paris was recovering from the trauma of a sexual attack. When she was just 14 a much older ‘complete stranger’ sexually assaulted her. ‘I don’t wanna give too many details. But it was not a good experience at all, and it was really hard for me, and, at the time, I didn’t tell anybody.’
5. On recovery and modelling
After her public suicide attempt, Paris received therapy. She says this was great for her and made her into a whole new person.
Now she finds her modelling career therapeutic. ‘I’ve had self-esteem issues for a really, really long time. Plenty of people think I’m ugly, and plenty of people don’t. But there’s a moment when I’m modelling where I forget about my self-esteem issues and focus on what the photographer’s telling me – and I feel pretty.’
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.