Why The Jackson Family Turned On La Toya Jackson

May 2024 · 2 minute read

In 1991, La Toya Jackson released her tell-all memoir, "La Toya: Growing Up in the Jackson Family," in which she accused her father, Joe Jackson, of numerous acts of physical and sexual abuse against her and several of her siblings when they were children. Naturally, the memoir became all the rage among the public at the time, and even became a New York Times bestseller.

La Toya spoke to AP News at the time about the sexual abuse Joe committed against her and her older sister, Rebbie Jackson. "I'd tremble down at the other end of the sofa," she said of when her sister was being abused. "I wouldn't want to look." As a result of these concerning allegations, La Toya naturally became estranged from her family — her father especially, who held considerable sway over almost all of his children up until his 2018 death. Her younger brother Michael, however, corroborated her reports in a 1993 interview with Oprah.

This estrangement was exacerbated when she turned on her brother two years later, when the first allegations of child sexual misconduct were made against Michael by Evan Chandler, per the Los Angeles Times. "This has been going on since 1981," she said in a press conference, "and it's not just one child." However, it later became clear that almost all of La Toya's life was being controlled by her even more abusive husband, Jack Gordon. 

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