In 1983, as Michael Jackson stood on top of the world with the release of Thriller, his iconic moonwalk, and a record-breaking eight Grammy wins, there was still one room he couldn’t enter alone—a meeting with his father, Joseph Jackson. While millions were celebrating the King of Pop’s success, behind the scenes, Michael continued to grapple with a painful past dominated by fear, intimidation, and childhood trauma.

Joseph Jackson, the patriarch of the Jackson family, was more than just a manager. To Michael, he was a figure of fear. From a young age, Michael recalled being beaten if he made mistakes during rehearsals with the Jackson 5. His autobiography, Moonwalk, details how even as a child, he would feel physically sick around his father. “He’d come to see me, and I would get sick. I’d start to regurgitate,” Michael once confessed to Oprah Winfrey in a rare and raw interview.

The Jackson 5’s success in the 1960s and 70s came at a heavy price. Joseph demanded perfection. Mistakes were met with belts, switches, and brutal discipline. “Dad would make me so mad at him that I’d try to get back at him—and get beaten all the more,” Michael wrote. This pressure and abuse would leave deep psychological scars that Michael carried well into adulthood.

Eventually, as his solo career skyrocketed, Michael fired Joseph as his manager—a decision that symbolized more than just a business move. “It’s not easy firing your father,” he told a biographer. When Joseph received the termination documents at home, Michael wasn’t even there. And when they finally met to talk, Michael brought an advisor to avoid being alone with him. Joseph’s response: “The fact you can’t even talk to me unless you have this guy here… it hurts me.”

Yet despite the harshness, Michael seemed to carry a conflicted emotional response to his father. Over time, his public stance toward Joseph softened. In a 2001 speech, Michael described his father’s actions as “a kind of love… an imperfect love, to be sure, but love nonetheless.” He added, “I have found absolution, and in the place of revenge, I have found reconciliation.”

By the 2000s, Joseph himself admitted he had hit his children but denied it was abuse. Speaking to Oprah, he claimed the discipline kept them out of trouble. “I don’t regret the beatings,” he said, adding, “It kept them out of jail.”

Michael, meanwhile, had come to terms with his father’s complex personality. In the Michael Jackson Tapes, a book based on a private audio diary, he said, “He is so different now… Time and age has changed him… It is almost like the ship has sailed its course, and it is so hard for me to accept this other guy that is not the guy I was raised with.”

Joseph stood by Michael during his 2005 trial on child molestation charges and later claimed that Michael had tried to reach him shortly before his death in 2009. “He said, ‘Call my father… he would know how to get me out of this,’” Joseph recalled in an interview with CNN. But that call never came through.

Hours after Michael’s death, Joseph gave an impromptu press conference outside the Jackson estate. “He tried his hardest to please everybody,” he said. “He helped the blind. He helped everybody that needed help… I was very proud of my son.”

However, despite any late-life efforts at reconciliation, Michael did not include Joseph in his will. It was perhaps the final act of emotional distance—a legal move echoing their professional and personal split decades earlier.

Michael Jackson’s relationship with his father was marked by fear, resentment, but also longing and eventual attempts at understanding. For fans and historians alike, it’s a reminder that even icons are shaped by deep and often painful family histories.

What do you think about Joseph Jackson and his influence on Michael’s life and career? Let us know your thoughts.