She’s heir to a $1 billion fortune, keeper of the legacy of pop’s biggest star. She grew up with a father who spent money with abandon, popped pills, wasted away into emaciation — all while living in perpetual childhood.
So the most surprising thing about Paris Katherine Jackson, age 14, is how normal she is.
That’s all thanks, ironically, to her damaged, brilliant father, Michael Jackson.
Until his death in 2009, the King of Pop kept his children in near-hiding from the media and especially from his family, the siblings who wanted his money and the father who Michael said abused him as a child star.
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POP’S KID: Wise and worldly beyond her 14 years, the striking Paris Jackson shields her brothers (below) from disputes over her late dad’s will, prepares for her first film role and still enjoys teen stuff like shopping at the mall and Twitter.
Perhaps most important, Jackson, infamous for his money troubles, tried to protect his kids from the temptations of too much wealth. They’re certainly comfortable, getting six-figure stipends annually. But for now that money is controlled by their guardian, Michael’s mother, Katherine, and the three children won’t have access to their full inheritance until age 40.
The result, friends of the family say, is that Prince Michael, 15, Paris and Blanket, 10, seem more grounded than you might expect from kids who grew up in a place called Neverland (or who are named “Blanket”).
Of the three, it’s Paris — with her mesmerizing blue eyes and prolific Twitter account — who has become the family’s most fascinating figure.
She’s already stood up to her aunts and uncles who, furious that they were largely left out of Michael’s will, tried to get more money out it by pressuring Katherine. It didn’t work; the will remained unchanged. And Paris, much to the Jackson family’s annoyance, tweeted the whole thing, in a moment that would have made her father proud — using his enemy, the media, to help her own cause.
“I am who I am,” Paris says on Twitter. “I’m weird, I’m lame, I run into things, I spill food, I trip, I scream about random stupid stuff but I’m me and I like it.”
So, what’s it like being the daughter of the King of Pop?
Paris Jackson eats trail mix for snacks, loves going to the mall and getting reactions from those who stare because of the “weird and long socks she’s wearing” — although the stares are likely because people are stunned when they see the daughter of the late and famously reclusive Jacko in public.
And like her father, family members say, she’s a perfectionist. She joined her middle-school flag-football team, but only after she knew she could match the fastest kids in the prestigious Buckley School north of Beverly Hills.
Its $29,000-a-year tuition is up slightly from when alumni such as Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, Matthew Perry, Alyssa Milano and Laura Dern attended.
