Michael Jackson’s daughter, Paris Jackson, opened up about her personal struggles while she suffered from addiction.
“The behavior is really ugly. It’s really ugly behavior in a moral way, because I was raised to be kind — and not nice,” Paris, 28, said during a Tuesday, May 26, appearance on Jack Osbourne’s “Trying Not to Die” podcast. “I could give a s**t about being nice — but being kind and looking people in the eye and asking the waiter their name so you can write it down on the receipt later, just little things of, just like, how do you treat people?”
Paris recalled going through “years and years and years of self-hatred” before achieving sobriety.
“‘Oh, I may be a liar, a cheater, a piece of s**t, a thief, whatever, but I do have a good moral compass, like, I was raised right in that way. What happens when I drink is that goes away,” she said. “That goes right out the window and I become a very vindictive person.”
Paris confessed she had other personal struggles before turning to alcohol and drugs.
“I struggled with self-harm for a really long time before I ever had my first drink or drug. I had weird relationships with overeating and food as a young kid,” she recalled. “There was this overall reachy, graspy energy that I only ever see in other addicts. Reaching for something outside of yourself.”
Paris shared that she went to treatment “several times” before — and after — starting her sobriety journey.
Over the years, Paris has been candid about how she has struggled with addiction since her teen years. Last year, Paris revealed that she achieved a major milestone in her sobriety.
“Hi, I’m pk, and I’m an alcoholic and a heroin addict,” she wrote via Instagram in January 2025. “Today marks 5 years clean and sober from all drugs and alcohol. To say that I’m thankful would be a poor euphemism. Gratitude hardly scratches the surface.”
Earlier this year, she opened up about how she is still putting in the work to maintain her sobriety,
“Getting sober ain’t always the indication that life is perfect,” Paris wrote via Instagram in January. “A few years in, it all got very very hard for what felt like an eternity. I didn’t have the same survival skills I was used to having to cope. I had to learn to live life on life’s terms.”
