Joe Jackson: “I never beat Michael like the media tried to say”

During a sensational interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Jackson was initially defensive about his relationship with son Michael, insisting: “I don’t think he was afraid of me. What he was afraid of, he may do something wrong and I’d chastise him, but not beat him. I never beat him like the media tried to say.”

But he was forced to reveal the truth when his wife, Katherine, interjected: “You might as well admit it. That’s the way black people raised their children.”
She added: “He used a strap.”

Jackson then revealed: “I would have punished him by whipping him with a strap or something when he did something wrong. It would have kept him out of trouble.”

The King of Pop’s parents were interviewed by talk-show host Oprah Winfrey at their home in Encino, California, for a special edition of the show.

During the emotional interview, Katherine also revealed that she had confronted Michael – who died last June after his personal physician, Conrad Murray, injected him with the powerful anaesthetic Propofol – about his addiction to painkillers, but he denied having a problem.

She told Winfrey: “I spoke to him about it once, when I had heard it, and he denied it. I was telling him I didn’t want to hear one day that he had overdosed because it would break my heart – it would kill me too.

“But he kept saying he wasn’t. He kept saying, ‘My own mother don’t believe me’. There was part of me that wanted to believe him, but I didn’t.”