This story is incredibly shocking, polarizing and disturbing. Yesterday we heard the news that Mackenzie Phillips was about to come out with a bombshell in her new memoir, High on Arrival – she’d had sex with her own father for over 10 years in a relationship she sort-of classified as “consensual.” Phillips describes the first instance she’d realized that she was sleeping with her father, on the night before her first wedding at the age of 19, and writes that she woke up out of a blackout having sex with him. When she confronted her father later to ask him about the rape, her dad responded that they’d made love. Mackenzie the began an over ten year sexual relationship with her biological father. She does classify it as consensual, but as she explained on Oprah yesterday it was more like “Stockholm Syndrome” where captive people identify with their kidnappers, and she was bombed out of her mind on various drugs the whole time. (Jezebel has a very good editorial on whether a sexual relationship between a parent and child can be considered “consensual” – thanks Mollyb for that link)
Yesterday Mackenzie’s confessional interview aired on Oprah. (There’s a segment on The Huffington Post of the interview and you can watch it there if you’re so inclined. CNN also has a pre-taped segment with Mackenzie in which she talks about how paranoid and out of it she was due to all the drugs she was taking daily.) In a revelation that brings up the cringe factor that much more, Mackenzie says that she ended the relationship with her father when she became pregnant and didn’t know whether the father was her own dad or the man she lived with, the father of her son. She had an abortion that her father paid for and “I never let him touch me again”
There has been much debate as to whether Phillips is believable and what motivation she has for coming out with this incredibly shocking news. Some people say this is personal information best left to one’s therapist and others say that she deserves a lot of credit for coming out with something so stigmatizing that can serve to help other women in this situation. Philips is of course promoting her memoir, and she’s doing a very good job getting the word out by going on Oprah and revealing something so shocking that it’s getting a lot of press.
I watched a segment on CNN live about this issue trying to make sense of it all, because I honestly don’t know how I feel about it. I did find Mackenzie believable on Oprah, but she also kept referencing her book and saying “it’s all in there,” as if trying to compel us to buy it. CNN.com Live anchor Reggie Aqui called this story “in recent memory the most shocking celebrity story I have heard,” and I have to agree. This is way out there. CNN’s Showbiz Tonight’s A.J. Hammer explained why people are skeptical of Mackenzie. “We hear so many shocking tell-alls from celebrities. What can you say that’s going to be over the top, that’s going to give people an incentive to be interested in what you have to say? Well guess what, stuff like this we really haven’t seen.”
Meanwhile Mackenzie’s family is responding to these allegations about their dad John, who died in 2001. One of Mackenzie’s two half sisters, Chynna Phillips, released a statement yesterday supporting her side of the story, and said Mackenzie told her about it over ten years ago and “I knew it was true. I mean, who in their right mind would make such a claim if it wasn’t true?” Other family members aren’t so sure, though, and two of John’s former wives have come out with statements questioning Mackenzie’s story:
Phillips’ story isn’t without its detractors: Her former stepmother, Genevieve Waite, released a statement to the “Oprah Winfrey Show” denouncing Phillips’ account.
“I am stunned by Mackenzie’s terrible allegations about her father,” Waite wrote. “I would often complain about her overly familiar attitudes towards him, and he said it was just her way. John was a good man. … He was incapable, no matter how drunk or drugged he was, to have sexual relations with his own child.”
“McKenzie’s drug addiction for 35 years has been the result of many unpleasant experiences,” Michelle Phillips, John Phillips’ second wife, told CNN in a statement. “Whether her relationship with her father is delusional or not, it is an unfortunate circumstance and very hurtful for our entire family.”
[From CNN.com]
E! Online has more from John’s second wife Michelle, and she calls Mackenzie “jealous of her siblings” and details an instance where Mackenzie told her about the relationship with John, but then called her back to say she was only joking about.
Meanwhile Mackenzie’s only other full sibling, her brother Tamerlaine, has supposedly recorded a YouTube video responding to his sister’s allegations, which is below (I cannot verify that this is Tamerlaine, so if anyone can please comment with more information. He does have other earlier videos in which he identifies himself as Tamerlaine.) He says he was in boarding schools growing up and has no idea if what Mackenzie is claiming is true. He then goes on to say that he was addicted to drugs and had his life saved by a guru. It sounds like he’s involved in some kind of cult.
We haven’t yet heard from Mackenzie’s other half sister, Bijou, but Mackenzie did say on Oprah that she’s sure her father didn’t touch her two half sisters “I know for a fact that I am the only daughter that this happened to, and I don’t know why he chose me to visit his demons upon.”
Here’s the video from a guy claiming to be Tamerlaine Phillips: “I don’t know if these allegations are true or not. [A guru] saved me, I’ve been sober a long time now. My family is a bowl of dog urine compared to [this guru]. My best wishes to Mackenzie.”
