The father of the famous Jackson family, Joe Jackson is dead. He was 89. Jackson was the patriarch of the Jackson 5, Michael Jackson, Janet and others, which proved to be music royally for decades.
Jackson, the father of 11, had been hospitalized for the last few weeks due to terminal pancreatic cancer. Jermaine Jackson told press last week that the family was having a difficult time visiting him or getting information about his condition.
“No one knew what was going on — we shouldn’t have to beg, plead and argue to see our own father, especially at a time like this,” he lamented at the time. “We have been hurting. We were not being told where he was and couldn’t get the full picture. Even from the doctor. My mother was worried sick.”
Days after the interview was published, TMZ reported that the family, including Joe’s wife, Katherine, as well as the couple’s children and grandchildren, had visited him at the hospital.
An account claiming to be Joe himself hinted that his days might be numbered, tweeting on June 24, “I have seen more sunsets than I have left to see. The sun rises when the time comes and whether you like it or not the sun sets when the time comes.”
However, his granddaughter, Paris Jackson, later alleged that Joe never used the account and did not post the tweet.
Joe suffered numerous health problems in recent years, including several strokes in 2013.
In 2015, he was hospitalized for a stroke and suffered three heart attacks, after which he had a pacemaker installed.
In July 2016, TMZ reported that he was hospitalized for a high fever, though the cause was undisclosed.
Joe’s relationship with his famous family has been checkered at best.
In the 1960s and ’70s, Joe used a combination of business savvy, musical genius and allegedly abusive parenting to turn his five sons — Jermaine, Jackie, Tito, Marlon and Michael — into the legendary Jackson 5, giving Michael a springboard to eventually become the King of Pop.
His children frequently recalled beatings at Joe’s hand, which Joe didn’t deny, telling Oprah Winfrey that his whippings, for which he used a switch and a belt, “kept [them] out of jail and kept them right.”
“I taught them to be tough,” Joe told The Post of raising his sons with corporal punishment. “We raised them in a tough neighborhood [in Gary, Ind.], where other kids were in gangs and getting into drugs. I didn’t want them to be soft.”
