Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts
By Alyce Wilson
Last night, La Toya Jackson, sister of Michael Jackson, spoke to Larry King. It was her first interview in six years, and while she was mostly there to promote her new album, "Startin' Over," she also answered questions about her famous brother.
La Toya appeared without the usual harsh makeup for which she's known, the pale face makeup and drawn on eyebrows. She looked surprisingly like her sister, Janet.
She's also apparently either lightened her hair or stopped dying it black, depending on what her natural color is.
Known for awhile as the "black sheep" of the family, La Toya has been as notoriously reclusive as Michael and usually made infrequent appearances, speaking briefly and often in a tiny voice.
But as Larry ran through the most controversial aspects of her career — posing in Playboy, pitching the Psychic Friends Network and even denouncing, in 1993, her brother's association with young boys — she says it was all spin. And not from the press, from her own management.
This is the twist: her management was her husband, Jack Gordon, from whom she's now divorced.
While it's fairly easy to understand why an entertainer who is urged by her management, husband or not, to pose in Playboy might agree that it's a good career decision (to play up her sex appeal, for example), it's a little more difficult to understand why she would make an accusatory comment about her own brother when he was in the midst of a criminal investigation, as he was in 1993, when a 13-year-old accused him of sexual abuse.
But her assertion that a controlling husband made her do it is more feasible than it might at first appear.
First of all, she kept asserting during the interview that she's much happier now and much more together. And from her demeanor, it seemed to be true. It was like we were seeing an entirely different person than we'd seen before.
In the Larry King interview, she held her head up high, answered questions directly, meeting Larry in the eye. This is far different from the demeanor most people expect from La Toya, where she would be shirking away and answering in a terse, overly quiet voice, often making contradictory or odd statements.
In addition, she recoiled at the thought of using Gordon's name. This could indicate the depth of the emotional abuse she suffered from him.
And I'd also suggest that her family history made her likely to fall into an abusive relationship.
While she didn't entirely back off previous statements that her father had beat her and that she would not reconcile with her family until there was an apology, she now says that her father was tough because he did what he believed was best, and that there has been a reconciliation. But if there's even a fraction of truth in her previous statements, if her father wasn't physically abusive but only domineering, it would fit the pattern for her to then get involved with a controlling, emotionally abusive husband.
People who are emotionally or physically abused begin to believe that's the kind of treatment that they deserve.
She got into a little detail about what her life was like with Gordon. La Toya said that Gordon was always around her, that she didn't even have the keys to the different houses that she owned. This is typical behavior for a controlling, emotionally abusive person.
Someone might question why she'd do anything out of character, such as alienate her family members; I'd contend that's exactly why she would. Emotional abusers work to isolate their victims, and gradually alienate them from their family and friends so that their entire world is controlled by the abuser.
The fact that she avoids using Gordon's name is telling. After being in an abusive situation for an extended period of time, the abuser's name itself has a certain power, like conjuring a demon.
Speaking of demons, there's a new assertion in an upcoming Vanity Fair article that Michael paid $150,000 to put a voodoo curse on some players in the entertainment world, including Steven Spielberg and David Geffen.
To Larry, La Toya said she didn't know of any such thing and that, to her knowledge, Michael has great respect and admiration for both Spielberg and Geffen. So is this simply more spin? Until the article comes out and I get a chance to evaluate it for myself, I can't take a stand on it. Whether or not we believe this new allegation will depend on the source and the potential motives for talking about it.
Two very revealing things were said during La Toya's interview. First, when she was asked about how her brother was handling the bad press, she said, "He's a strong cookie," the phrasing of which makes one think of "smart cookie." Don't forget that Michael Jackson is rumored to have created his own strange buzz from time to time by feeding outlandish stories to the tabloids. Could the voodoo story be another case of the master showman playing sleight-of-hand? Another scarf dance for the media?
Most interesting was when La Toya answered a caller's question about plastic surgery and why her family — a group of very attractive people — decided this was necessary. She answered, "I think it's up to each individual, and if you're not happy with something, knowing that you can probably alter it a little, that's okay. And I think that if it wasn't supposed to be done, they wouldn't have surgeons to do it."
Looking at how she's changed over the years, it's easy to believe that however reconciled she might be with her father now, she went through something in her early days that altered her sense of self drastically.
But given how healthy and self-assured she appeared on Larry King's program, maybe she is finally taking those needed steps towards independence and emotional health.
Moral:
Even those who suffer emotional abuse can find strength
to start over.
Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson
Other
writings by Alyce about Michael Jackson:
My First Celebrity Crush
The Tyranny of Photography
(Wild Violet Vol. I Issue 1)
(Feb. 7, 2003) - Michael Jackson's Mask
(Feb. 10, 2003) - Lifting the Mask
(Feb. 11, 2003) - Would Be Pundit
(Feb. 19, 2003) - MJ Fascination
(Feb. 22, 2003) - Michael Gets His Say
(November
19, 2003) - Cable News Junkie
(June
16, 2005) - My Two Cents
Tribute
to a tragic pop star: Anatomy
of a Face
What Michael Jackson might have looked like without surgery: 'Nasal
Cripple'
A
Photographic HisTory
of Michael Jackson's Face
Which Michael Jackson era are you? Take
the quiz
Entertainment Weekly column: Man
in the Mirror
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do you think? Share your thoughts
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