Mackenzie Phillips would likely be considered by many in today’s times as a ‘nepobaby.’
She was born into music royalty — her father was The Mamas & The Papas frontman John (he had five children — Mackenzie, Jeffrey, Chynna, Bijou and Tamerlane — to three different women) and her mother was his first wife, heiress Susan Adams.
However the same man who brought her into the world was also the one who fueled her drug addiction and who she claimed raped her as a teen before it turned into a 10-year incestuous affair — a disturbing bombshell that shocked the world and her family.
The 64-year-old actress-turned-drug counsellor also became famous in her own right, starring in hit movies and TV shows throughout her long Hollywood career.
Mackenzie Phillips was born into music royalty — her father was The Mamas & The Papas frontman John (pictured with her circa 1981) and her mother was heiress Susan Adams
But the 64-year-old actress-turned-drug counsellor became famous in her own right, starring in hit movies and TV shows throughout her long Hollywood career. She’s pictured in 2019
She won her first major film role at the age of 12 in George Lucas’s 1973 movie American Graffiti and went on to star in popular sitcom One Day At A Time as rebellious teen Julie Cooper.
The hit show ran from 1975 to 1984 and, according to Variety, she was the highest-paid actor on the show at the time.
However despite her massive success at such a young age, her career was brought down by drug use — as a result she was fired twice from One Day At A Time.
Mackenzie said her father taught her to roll joints at 10 and she tried cocaine for the first time at 11.
Her life began to spiral out of control because of her substance abuse, and she has previously spoken out about how she and her father, John, would do drugs together.
In her 2009 memoir, High On Arrival, Mackenzie claimed that she and John had a 10-year incestuous relationship, a bombshell confession that not only rocked the public — but divided her family.
Recently, the 64-year-old American Graffiti star opened up in a rare interview with her sister, Chynna, revealing how she has forgiven her father — but it did not mean she ‘co-sign[ed] or agree[d] with what I’m forgiving… him for.’
The siblings spoke out about John’s ‘dark’ side and how he was a ‘complex’ person, despite Chynna declaring her father was also ‘one of my favorite individuals in the whole wide world.’
Mackenzie pictured with her mother, Susan Stuart Adam, who was John’s first wife
Mackenzie with her her famous sisters, Bijou and Wilson And Phillips singer Chynna
Having faced years of battling addiction, Mackenzie has been able to overcome her demons and has been able to stay sober, while also balancing her careers in acting and drug abuse counselling.
She was able to pull from real life when she landed the role as troubled inmate Barbara Denning in Netflix’s Orange Is The New Black in 2018.
‘People said, “Weren’t you triggered by snorting fake drugs?” I was like, “No, I was absolutely filled with the deepest gratitude that I don’t live that way,”‘ she told the Associated Press at the time.
‘It’s very bleak, and there’s nothing to look forward to but the next hit for Barb. So when she she’s not getting high, she starts focusing all that beautiful energy that you could focus on wellness or helping people on revenge and resentment. It’s pretty textbook that energy needs to be focused somewhere purposeful or you’re going to get high again.’
With Mackenzie back in the headlines, FEMAIL has delved into her past, and laid bare her eventful and tumultuous life — from her time as a child actor to her troubled relationship with her father.
Troubled child actress whose career was stunted by her drug addiction
Born Laura Mackenzie Phillips on November 10, 1959, she was the daughter of The Mamas & The Papas frontman John and first wife Susan.
With her musical pedigree, it should come as no surprise that she was scouted by a casting director for American Graffiti to play Carol while playing a gig with a band she had started with her friends back in the 1970s.
‘My friends and I had put together a band, and because our parents worked in the industry, we were able to play at a hoot night, like an open mic night, at the Troubadour,’ she told the Los Angeles Times in August.
‘The casting director Fred Roos happened to be there that night and he approached me and my mother after our set and asked if I’d like to be in a movie. And I said, “Yeah, man, that would be totally cool.” I was 12 and had no acting experience.’
With her musical pedigree, it should come as no surprise that she was scouted by a casting director for American Graffiti to play Carol (pictured) while playing a gig with her band
Following that success, she starred in several other projects, including Rafferty & The Gold Dust Twins (pictured), before winning the role of Julie Cooper on One Day At A Time
When the film premiered in 1973, Mackenzie’s father and stepmother shipped her off to a Swiss boarding school to ‘protect’ her.
‘They sent me reviews and posters, and I became one of the stars of the film while I was in Switzerland. It was bizarre because I left a semi-anonymous, hippie kid with a weird family and came back famous in my own right,’ she said.
From then, she became professionally known as Mackenzie Phillips after the name change was suggested by her then manager Pat McQueeney.
Following that success, she starred in several other projects before winning the role of Julie Cooper on One Day At A Time, alongside Valerie Bertinelli as her TV sister.
She described herself as the ‘obvious rebel’ on set, telling sister Chynna in a recent chat: ‘I got in trouble, I got caught doing drugs and all this kind of stuff… and I talk about it in High On Arrival, with Valerie’s permission, is that what people didn’t know is that we were leaving for lunch and going up to my house and drinking wine in the pool and chopping lines on the coffee table.’
Mackenzie clarified that Valerie wasn’t doing drugs to the extent she was at the time and was able to ‘slide under the radar.’
Unfortunately her drug addiction would lead to Mackenzie being fired from her job on One Day At A Time twice. She’s pictured here with castmates Bonnie Franklin and Valerie Bertinelli
‘My addiction was so powerful and so out of control,’ Mackenzie reflected on her drug use during the show. Pictured with costars Pat Harrington Jr, Valerie and Bonnie
During her interview with Chynna, she also reflected on when she was fired from One Day At A Time.
‘My addiction was so powerful and so out of control that when I was fired for the second time from the show for drug use, I thought, “Ah screw them, you know, I’ll get my next job in a minute,” that did not happen. And I became basically unhirable for a long, long time,’ Mackenzie said.
‘Once I got sober for the first time I realized that I had to put my pride in my back pocket and not go, “Well I was on the biggest TV show all time,” because there were many like me who refused to audition and I just said you know what I’m putting that behind me, and I went out and I pounded the pavement and I auditioned against a bunch of other young women and I started booking gigs and I started booking jobs.
‘I was sort of in episodic hell for a long time and then the Disney Channel show [So Weird] came along… it was a great show, it was so much fun.’
She appeared in 65 episodes of So Weird from 1999 to 2001, but didn’t land another major role again until Orange Is The New Black (2018) and the One Day At A Time reboot (2017-2020).
In 2008, Mackenzie pleaded guilty to possessing cocaine after she was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport earlier that year.
It was alleged she was carrying drugs packaged in balloons and plastic bags, Reuters reported.
As part of her plea, Mackenzie agreed to complete an 18-month drug treatment program, according to Fox News.
Mackenzie has also spoken about being ‘a woman of a certain age’ in Hollywood and being grateful for having lived for as long as she had when viewers were ‘taken aback’ by her turn as Barbara in Orange Is The New Black.
‘I’m a woman of a certain age who hasn’t had any plastic surgery and plans to keep it that way. Consider this: Had I been Botox’d and nipped and tucked and lifted, they never would have hired me. I’m very proud of my age because I never thought I would live this long,’ she said.
Mackenzie claimed in her memoir, High On Arrival, that she and dad John had an incestuous 10-year affair
It was one of the most shocking revelations to come out of her 2009 memoir: Mackenzie claimed she and her father, John, had a decade-long sexual relationship.
She said her dad first raped her when she was 19 — on the night before her wedding to Jeff Sessler.
Mackenzie recalled how she became pregnant — but had an abortion after not being sure whether the baby belonged to her father or her then husband, Jeff, who had no idea about the secret affair.
But as her life began to spiral out of control on drugs, the sex became consensual for almost a decade.
Mackenzie also accused her father of introducing her to heroin when she was still a teenager, missing the vein when he tried to inject her and turning her arm numb.
John (left) pictured with third wife Genevieve Waite and daughter Mackenzie in 1975
Recently Mackenzie has opened up about the 10-year incestuous affair she had with her father on sister Chynna’s YouTube channel
At the time of her book’s release in 2009, the troubled actress, then 49, spoke for the first time about her incest ordeal in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
She said in her book that her father turned up on the eve of her 1979 wedding to Jeff – a member of the Rolling Stones entourage – determined to stop the marriage.
‘I had tons of pills, and dad had tons of everything, too. Eventually I passed out on dad’s bed,’ she wrote.
‘My father was not a man with boundaries. He was full of love, and he was sick with drugs.
‘I woke up that night from a blackout to find myself having sex with my own father. Had this happened before? I didn’t know. All I can say is it was the first time I was aware of it.
‘For a moment I was in my body, in that horrible truth, and then I slid back into a blackout.’
Mackenzie also told Oprah her father taught her to roll joints at 10 and she tried cocaine for the first time at eleven.
From being raped as a teenager by her father while she was in a drug-addled stupor, she said the relationship became consensual and lasted almost a decade.
Following the bombshell revelation, Bijou (pictured here as a baby with Mackenzie) said at the time: ‘I understand Mackenzie’s need to come clean with a history she feels will help others, but it’s devastating to have the world watch as we try and mend broken fences…’
Meanwhile Chynna (pictured with Bijou and Mackenzie in 2022) defended her sister and believed her allegation to be true
‘We’re touring, and I begin waking up after drug-fueled events with my pants around my ankles and my father sleeping beside me,’ she said.
‘Again, [I thought]: “Don’t think. Don’t look. Just keep going.” And this happened over time. It didn’t happen every day. It didn’t happen every week, but it certainly happened.’
She finally ended the relationship after she became pregnant.
The revelation sparked a rupture in her family.
In her 2017 book, Hopeful Healing: Essays on Managing Recovery and Surviving Addiction, the actress revealed some of her family members blamed her for the abuse.
One relative even dis-invited her from a birthday party, as Mackenzie explained: ‘Another family member was angered that I might attend, and I was told she was just not willing to forgive me yet.
‘She wouldn’t forgive me! For abuses perpetrated against me as a child, or for exposing those abuses perhaps.’
Meanwhile her sister, Chynna, told Oprah: ‘Am I exceedingly joyful that my family secret that I told maybe my therapist, my husband and my very best friend in the whole world [is now public]? No.’
She added that when her sister had told her she about her 10-year relationship with their father, she said it felt like ‘somebody could have dropped a piano on my head and I wouldn’t have felt it. But I knew it was true.’
Her other half-sister Bijou said in a statement at the time: ‘I understand Mackenzie’s need to come clean with a history she feels will help others, but it’s devastating to have the world watch as we try and mend broken fences, especially when the man in question isn’t here to defend himself.’
‘Papa’ John was the chief songwriter and leader of The Mamas & The Papas — the iconic group that topped the charts around the world in the 60s with hits such as California Dreamin’ and Monday, Monday.
He died in 2001 at the age of 65 after a long battle with drug and alcohol addiction.
Married three times and came out as bisexual — but the ‘love of her life’ is her son, Shane
The 64-year-old has been married three times — to manager Jeff, guitarist Shane Fontayne and The Who’s conductor Keith Levenson (pictured with her in 2005)
Mackenzie considers her 36-year-old son, Shane (who she shares with ex Fontayne), to be ‘the love of my life.’ The pair are pictured in 1995
The 64-year-old has been married three times — to manager Jeff, guitarist Shane Fontayne and The Who’s conductor Keith Levenson.
But Mackenzie considers her 36-year-old son Shane (who she shares with ex Fontayne) to be ‘the love of my life’ and they frequently bond by ‘playing extremely complicated board games all weekend long.’
Last year she came out as bisexual, telling the Behind The Velvet Rope Podcast: ‘Throughout my life have lived on both sides of the curtain.
‘I’ve had boyfriends, I’ve had girlfriends, you know, throughout my life. I am neither one nor the other.’
Drawing from her own experiences with addiction, Mackenzie became a substance use counselor at LA treatment facility Breathe Life Healing Centers in 2016.
She’s currently listed as the vice president of referral relations on the clinic’s website.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk