‘If I die, heed my advice,’ Jackson told daughter

Paris Jackson speaks during the Michael Forever concert at The Millenium Stadium in Cardiff.

LOS ANGELES:

Michael Jackson told his daughter Paris “If I die tomorrow, always remember what I told you,” the 13-year-old said Wednesday, recalling how her King-of-Pop father encouraged her acting talent.

In her first solo TV interview, Paris — who is working on her movie debut — said she wanted to act from a young age, and revealed how she initially thought it was “stupid” when her father forced his children to wear face masks.

She loved acting since she was “really little, because my dad was in the (1988) movie Moonwalker, and I knew he could sing really well, but I didn’t know he could act. I saw that and I went ‘Wow, I want to be just like him,’” she said.

“We did (acting) improvs together, he would give us little scenarios, and say like, ‘In this scene you’re gonna cry and I’d cry on the spot,” she told talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, in excerpts released ahead of the Thursday broadcast.

Asked if she could cry on the spot, she added: “Yes, apparently I was faking it a lot of times.”

Paris, dressed in black with a black hat reminiscent of her father, remembered how she and her siblings Prince Michael and Blanket had to wear face masks when they were young, to protect their identity.

“I’m like, this is stupid, why am I wearing a mask?” she said, but added: “I realised, the older I got, he only tried to protect us.”

And she recalled: “He said, ‘If I die tomorrow, always remember what I told you.’ And I took his advice, and I remembered everything he told me.”

Paris, who was 11 when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009, will star in a live action/animated film called Lundon’s Bridge and the Three Keys, based on a famous book series for teenagers.

In October, she appeared on stage with older brother Prince Michael, 14, and nine-year-old Blanket, at a tribute concert for their father in Cardiff, Wales. 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2011.