The half-sister of Michael Jackson has revealed how she was shunned by the Jackson family for most of her life and humiliated by the King of Pop.
In an exclusive interview with DailyMailTV, Joh’Vonnie Jackson, whose mom was a secret lover of Jackson family patriarch Joe, tells of her heartache at being treated like an outsider by the famous clan.
And revealing details of her new book ‘Bastard Child’ she claims she was mentally tortured by her older brothers and sisters and cruelly snubbed at music concerts and family events.
Joh’Vonnie – born the day after Michael Jackson’s 16th birthday – is the product of a 25-year affair Joe Jackson had with her mom Cheryle Terrell.
She is still close to her father and to his credit he tried to integrate her into Jackson family life.
But despite his best efforts Joh’Vonnie, 43, has faced years of rejection by those she longed to be near.
Michael Jackson’s half-sister Joh’Vonnie, 43, has spoken out about she was shunned by the Jackson family for most of her life and humiliated by the King of Pop
Joh’Vonnie is related to the Jackson clan through her father, Joe Jackson (pictured) who had a 25-year affair
Her famous siblings: Joh’Vonnie said she met every one of her half-siblings after Joe revealed to the family that he had another daughter. Pictured above left to right: Rebbie, Randy, LaToya, Michael, Jackie, Marlon, Janet, and Tito Jackson
‘I was very aware that I was in the Jackson family growing up, I saw them on TV, I listened to their music,’ she explains.
‘But I was hidden away, kept secret for years, not able to become part of that family. It was hurtful.’
Eventually Joe Jackson’s secret daughter was revealed to the rest of the family, but the Jacksons wouldn’t accept her.
‘I have met every single last one of them, but for some reason there has always been something stopping them from accepting me, from being close to me,’ explains Joh’Vonnie.
‘Of course when I was around them there was a show of love, but once I was gone there was no phone calls asking how I’m doing or how is my daughter doing, it’s upsetting, real hurtful and I still feel rejected.
‘Even when my mother died in 2014 the first person who called me was their mother Katherine, the only sibling to call was Rebbie, she’s the only one who really cares.
‘I later said to my brother Jermaine, “my mother died,” he started stuttering and said, “I was gonna call.” It was a wake up call, it let me know my position in the family. As far as I’m concerned they can all kiss my a**.’
Amazingly the wedge driven between Joh’Vonnie and the rest of the family grew so vast from her childhood that she didn’t meet older brother Michael until she was 29.
They met in 2003 at Michael’s Neverland ranch where the entire Jackson clan had converged for a family reunion.
But as she stood before her superstar brother, her excitement was snatched away by the singer’s cold, emotionless demeanor.
Joh’Vonnie – born the day after Michael’s 16th birthday – is the product of a 25-year affair Joe Jackson had with her mom Cheryle Terrell (pictured). Terrelle died in 2014
Joe tried to integrate Joh’Vonnie into Jackson family life, she said, but the family did not accept her
Joh’Vonnie lives in Las Vegas with her 23-year-old daughter Yasmine. They live just a few miles from dad Joe, 88, and sees him at least once a week
‘It was a big moment for me,’ Joh’Vonnie recalls, her eyes narrowing.
‘But Michael was looking at me and seemed cold and standoffish, he just said hi and then he saw my daughter Yasmine, and he was just fascinated with her, in awe.
‘He said “Hi Jasmine” and I said, “No, Michael, her name is Yasmine with a Y,” I had to correct him.
‘He said “okay, Yasmine with a Y,” and then that was it.
‘He never acknowledged that I was his sister, there was no hug or kiss, not even a hand shake, no physical contact at all.
‘I wanted to embrace him, I thought that he would wanna go some place quiet and sit and talk with me and ask me about my life and get to know me a little better.
‘It was very hurtful, he wasn’t interested at all.’
Joh’Vonnie’s heartache was compounded by Michael’s continued interest in his then eight-year-old niece.
‘With my daughter he was totally different, she got hugs and kisses, everything I didn’t get, I’m woman enough to admit I was jealous.
‘We met outside by the movie theater, there was a bunch of people there.
‘I never did get a chance to speak to Michael properly.
‘At the time it was very hurtful, again there was this theme that I felt shut out.’
Joh’Vonnie stayed with her cousin at a hotel in Santa Barbara, California that night rather than on the sprawling 2,700 acre ranch.
She returned to Neverland the next day with a renewed hope of achieving a break-through with her older brother.
‘I didn’t see Michael all day, he was in the main house,’ she said.
‘Yasmine and Paris [Michael’s daughter] were off playing for hours, she was playing with her little cousin, Paris is such a sweet girl.
‘I was sat with the rest of the family. Jermaine and Rebbie talked with me for a while.
‘None of my other siblings acknowledged me much though.’
Michael never did make an effort to speak with her and Joh’Vonnie and Yasmine, left without as much as a goodbye.
Joh’Vonnie keeps in touch with her half-sister Rebbie, the eldest of the siblings, who she says is the only one ‘really cares.’ Above they are pictured with their father
Joh’Vonnie met her half-sister Janet when she was 15, but she claims the singer never wanted to have a relationship with her
For the single mom the snub came as a huge blow.
What’s worse, for years school bullies had taunted Joh’Vonnie because she was Michael Jackson’s sister.
Yet in reality he refused to have anything to do with her.
‘I got beat up every single day because I was Joh’Vonnie Jackson.
‘I had the hardest childhood, it was just as blue as Michael’s and just as blue as my other brothers and sisters, and then to grow up and they don’t want to have anything to do with me.
‘I get so irritated with my parents because I didn’t ask to be here.’
Jackson insiders claim the rift between the pair was mainly due to Joe’s devotion to Joh’Vonnie.
Michael loathed the fact that Joe favored her over the rest of his siblings.
Joh’Vonnie and her mother lived just five miles from the Jackson home and Joe would visit most days, lavishing Joh’Vonnie with gifts.
This was made worse when Michael’s parents ended up living separate lives and Joh’Vonnie, then in her early 20s, moved in with Joe in Las Vegas and worked as a baggage handler at the airport.
For Michael it was unsettling, and again fueled the rift.
In her new book Bastard Child, she describes being mentally tortured by her older brothers and sisters and cruelly snubbed at music concerts and family events
Joh’Vonnie did try to speak with her brother on the phone in 1999.
Katherine was at the Vegas house with Joe when Michael called to speak with his mother.
As the conversation came to an end Joh’Vonnie jumped up and asked to talk to her brother.
‘I had rowed with Joseph and was asking him why was daddy so mean, he told me not to let Joseph upset me and I said, “Okay, but Michael don’t forget about me, call me.”
‘I thought he was being nice, but I never heard from him after that until we met at Neverland.’
Joh’Vonnie has tried to reach out to her other eight siblings over the years – Janet, LaToya, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, Randy and Rebbie – but the only one she has really connected with is older sister Rebbie.
‘Rebbie has been very consistent with guidance and love,’ she said.
‘You can walk into her home and feel the love, she’s so sweet, she and I are very, very close. My other sisters not so much.
‘I met Janet when I was 15, I saw her that one time and it was clear she never wanted to have a relationship with me, I could never really understand why.
‘She was staring at me and checking me out and as soon as she heard me call Joseph ‘daddy,’ she switched off, turned her back and never spoke to me again.’
Joh’Vonnie was proud of her famous big sister and recalls going to dozens of Janet and Michael’s concerts.
‘Through daddy I would get tickets to all the concerts,’ she said.
‘I was amazed at Michael’s talent, I remember thinking as a little girl, “he looked at me, he saw me.”
‘I would sometimes go see them back stage but I could never get to talk to them, you couldn’t get close, it was frustrating.
‘I also didn’t have any access to phone numbers, I didn’t want to go through my father’s things and it wasn’t really something that was talked about.’
Over the years Joh’Vonnie has had various encounters with some of the other siblings.
Katherine Jackson, who has been married to Joe since 1949, knew of his affair which began in the early-1970s but her devotion to the Jehovah’s Witness faith led her to forgive him and accept Joh’Vonnie
Family insiders claim that the rift between Joh’Vonnie and Michael stemmed from his resentment that Joe favored her over the rest of his siblings
She says she always looked up to Tito most, but even he made little effort with her.
Joh’Vonnie said of the family rift: ‘It is what it is, I love my brothers and sisters no matter what they do, what is said about them, how they act, whatever, it’s unconditional for me.
‘The door is always open and my phone is always there, they can always call me if they need me for something.
‘But I don’t feel that that is extended for me. I feel rejected by some of the family.’
Unusually Joh’Vonnie is no stranger to the Jackson family home in Encino, having been there with Joe several times.
She is also on surprisingly friendly terms with Jackson matriarch Katherine and even calls her ‘mother’ like her siblings.
Katherine knew of Joe’s affair which began in the early-1970s but her devotion to the Jehovah’s Witness faith led her to forgive him and accept Joh’Vonnie.
But for her siblings, acceptance didn’t come so easy.
‘I would be shopping in an apartment store and would see LaToya, but I couldn’t go to talk with her because I didn’t feel she wanted to talk to me.
‘I didn’t ask it to be like this, I didn’t ask for all this trouble, I didn’t ask to be treated this way.
In LaToya’s book, ‘Growing Up in the Jackson Family’, the singer wrote that her mother Katherine had referred to Joh’Vonnie as a ‘bastard child’ – now the title of Joh’Vonnie’s own book.
She explained: ‘That’s just how LaToya is, she just likes to create drama, she was setting me up for failure, she wanted ultimately for me not to like her mother and for their to be issues.
‘I hung on to that and then I met Katherine and I couldn’t even see her saying anything like that about me.
‘She was really nice to me, I think she was very hurt at the time of the affair, that’s totally understandable.
‘No woman likes for her husband to go cheating on her and produce a child, it was probably heart-breaking.
‘But you know she had come out of that, she let me live in her home, me and my daughter, we didn’t have to pay any rent.
‘I worked to support my daughter and I took care of her home when she was not there.
‘We have cooked together with have had good conversations.’
For Joh’Vonnie, she wishes the rest of the family could take a leaf out of ‘Mother’s’ book.
Other than Rebbie and Tito, she doesn’t feel comfortable in any of her other sibling’s presence.
‘I’m not interested in having any of them over for Christmas dinner, in cooking anymore German chocolate cakes for anybody, or any peach cobbler, Jermaine likes for me to make those for him, I’m just not even… no I’m good.’
Joh’Vonnie works in the timeshare industry and lives in Las Vegas with her 23-year-old daughter Yasmine who is studying to be a nurse. She lives just a few miles from dad Joe, 88, and sees him at least once a week.
In recent years she has made a staggering weight loss transformation having dropped from 320lbs to 180lbs and is back to her best.
Her one big regret, though, is that she was never able to form a meaning relationship with big brother Michael Jackson before he died of acute drug intoxication on June 25, 2009.
‘I mourn a relationship that never began, that’s what I’m sad about,’ she says.
‘Because there’s a great possibly that I could have made a difference, I’m out spoken, @no you’re not doing this today Michael’. I could have made a difference and stopped some of the things he was doing to himself.
‘It’s sad and I’m not going to continue to beat myself up about it because that wasn’t my doing, these are decisions that he made.’
Joh’Vonnie writes of her ‘journey’ as an outsider to the Jackson family in her new book ‘Bastard Child’, which hits the shelves today.
‘I wanted to be able to write a book because I wanted to tell my side of the story and what happened with my life,’ she explains.
‘So many people have these assumptions about what was going on with me, I’m so misunderstood, everybody’s saying I just want to be famous and all these other things which are absolutely not true, the rest of the family gets to tell their side on everything, why shouldn’t I have the right to tell what my life has been like and be honest and authentic about it.’
Joh’Vonnie’s book ‘Bastard Child’ is available for order from Amazon