You guys don’t even know how much I wish I was writing the sentence “Paris Jackson is headed to college!” Or even “Paris Jackson took her SATs, plans to go to art school.” I really, really wish I could sit down with her and give her some life advice. It’s not that I think she’s particularly screwed up, nor do I believe that she’s necessarily heading on the wrong path. I just feel like she’s somewhat aimless and unfocused, as many 19-year-old girls are, frankly. Mostly I wish that we weren’t watching her while she figures out her life in real time. Paris covers the latest issue of I-D magazine, and the interview was conducted by text, because this is our world. The interview tries so hard to make Paris sound like some kind of activist-model. Personally, I’m not buying it, but we’ll see. I do love it when conventionally attractive, slender blonde women talk about how everyone should be body positive though. I can’t get enough of it. Some highlights:
Paris’s current causes: “I want to affect the fashion world and change the standards the media places on not just women but also men. I’m also heavy into pipeline sh-t right now, the environment is very important to me, and I want to do everything in my power to protect Mother Earth.
Whether she’s comfortable in her own skin: “Unfortunately in the world we live in it’s almost impossible to feel comfortable in your skin 24/7. Especially with what the media is constantly feeding us. I still have countless insecurities and fears, like everyone else I know. But we’re getting there, slowly but surely. Which is a big reason I want to change this fashion / beauty stigma, so it’s not as difficult for people around the world to feel beautiful just the way they are. Beauty is not measured by numbers, or symmetry, or shapes, or sizes, or colours, or anything like that. Beauty, true beauty, should be measured by the soul, the character, integrity, intentions and mindset of a person, what comes out of their mouth. How they behave. Their heart.
Why her generation is talking more about body positivity: “Ya the new generation is getting older. And that’s what they want, what they are demanding. Change and honesty. Celebrating who they are, who their friends are, random people they meet. They’re sick of reading lies and sick of unrealistic expectations in the media. The rest of the world, the racists, the homophobes, the sexists, they’re getting outnumbered by people with open minds. So this world has no choice but to embrace every one else’s beauty. Not just one idea of beauty. It’s such a broad thing, “beauty.” You can’t put into just one template.How she plans to redefine beauty so it’s more inclusive: “Definitely to talk about it and spread the word, but also to set an example I guess. I’m not symmetrical, I’m not a size zero, I eat hella burgers and endless amounts of pizza. I can’t fit into a runway sample size of designer clothes, I have scars and stretch marks and acne and I have cellulite. I’m human. Not a dress-up doll. The idea that we all have to fit one idea of beauty is outrageous and ridiculous because “perfection” is just an opinion.
The hardest part about being a woman: “Double standards definitely suck, being sexualised also isn’t cool. When you’re in the public eye and people write stuff about you, they’re usually not as lenient with judgment as they are with men. Oh, not to mention having a president that doesn’t respect you because you have a vagina. Men are hella dope, I definitely don’t think women are superior. We just all deserve to be treated with respect and equality. Feels me?
On Trump: “He’s hurting a lot of people but he’s also waking us up so… On behalf of the people that are starting a revolution, we def gotta thank him for the motivation.
I’m not going to judge her positivity or mock her journey. She’s given me no reason to think she’s hypocritical on these issues and hey, she seems like a nice girl. But I do have a quibble with the idea that she thinks she represents diversity in the modeling/fashion/celebrity world. I mean… again, she’s a beautiful young woman. She’s conventionally attractive by any Western standard. She’s white, blonde, delicate-featured and slender. She does not represent diversity in the celebrity world at all. She actually represents business-as-usual.
As for thanking Trump for “motivation” – no. I will not thank Trump for anything.
Photos courtesy of I-D Magazine, WENN.
often i dig what she says, while recognizing she is 19, intensely privileged and had a pretty emotionally intense childhood…buuuuuuuuuuuut….i cannot grasp how she views herself as an example of diverse and inclusive beauty? i mean, is she coming at this from a “human female” perspective and trying to ackwardly say “all women are beautiful, so am i”….
odd perspective and detached, really, if she means what she said as she said it.
She believes she is Michael’s biological daughter, so in her mind, she is half-black. That’s why she thinks she represents diversity.
This is not why she’s saying she’s representing inclusive beauty. She spelled it out: not simple size, acne, stretch marks, cellulite. This is why. She never brought up race or her father’s race. While I don’t consider the fashion world’s embrace of her at all revolutionary, I agree with her to an extent. She’s not model thin. She’s not cookie cutter Barbie. I think of her as a bit of an unconventional type, like Shailene Woodley.
WTW is right. She is not a model size and she wouldn’t fit in runway sizes. She would be told to lose weight for modeling. Right or wrong it is true.
She doesn’t mention race at all.
She looks like Kurt Cobain i the last picture. Just read Lourdes(Lola Ciccone) dropped out of college.
Dropped out of U of M to be a singer/dancer like her mum? Or maybe just a model/actress? Madonna must be white hot!
“She’s white, blonde, delicate-featured and slender.”
Paris doesn’t actually consider herself white, though. She believes Michael is her biological father.
Y-eeee-aaa-hh it’s a tough one isn’t it – you sort of have to tread carefully around that.
I find that topic extremely difficult which is why I’m not even touching it. If she believes he is her biological father (and he might be, who knows), I say nobody has the right to yell at her for it. It would be cruel, frankly.
This though: “I’m also heavy into pipeline sh-t right now” Giiiirl.
And “Men are hella dope” lolol.
Even if she sees herself as bi-racial, wouldn’t she realize that she benefits from having light skin (and possibly straight hair)? Wentworth Miller is bi-racial, and he acknowledges he is treated differently because he’s light-skinned.
I have no judgment on whether he did or did not provide the sperm, but my half-white, half-black daughter has blonde hair and hazel (though they started out blue for two years) eyes. Genetics are funny. That’s why you had some many POC who could and did “pass.”
I know two people – one of them is white, the other is east asian, and their kid’s face is the spitting image of the white parent and has the same eyes and hair.
My guess is that MJ’s lost his fertility as some point hence he is not Paris’ *biological* father.
I had a very sad discussion with a friend this year. She is bi-racial, and she was talking with her father who is black. She told him, in this climate, she is glad she can “pass” because she felt safer, and he told her he was glad she could “pass” too…and then they cried together. I’m so sad at how my country is treating people. No one should have to “pass” in order to feel safe.
He wasn’t her biological father?
In this day and age ‘belief’ about who your biological father is, doesn’t wash. She can take a DNA test, she wouldn’t even need his DNA, just take an ancestry DNA test and if there isn’t a whole load of African DNA in there she will know the answer. If she isnt, it almost isn’t that far removed from that woman everyone considers to be a bit ‘odd’ for claiming she has African heritage because her adopted/fostered siblings do. (Almost, ‘ish).
Come one. She doesn’t own us the proof of her genetical heritage. Why would you burden a young girl with this, when she herself is comfortable in the knowledge that Michael Jackson is her father? Being orphaned at a young age is bad enough. She doesn’t owe us to “kill him” twice.
What we know or believe is another thing. She knows the answer for her and even if we might disagree with her, we don’t have the authority to force our knowledge on her or make her take a DNA test.
I’m genuinely curious: Can that possibly be the case, that she actually believes that? It is clearly impossible.
Michael is not her biological father and Debbie Rowe is not her biological mother, just a surrogate.
http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/30/michael-jackson-debbie-rowe-surrogate-children-in-vitro/
I find it hard to believe that Debbie Rowe isn’t her biological mother. There was a picture of Debbie Rowe when she was younger and Paris looked exactly like her.
I wonder if she still considers herself black? I feel sort of bad for her, because MJ fed her that lie and that’s on him. But, she also needs a serious reality check. If she starts coming out talking about how diverse she is, a blonde haired, blue eyed white woman, I’m going to call some serious B.S.
I remember reading years ago that MJ allegedly did not want to be black, hence plastic surgeries and allegedly bleaching his skin. I also read that he suffered from some disorder and his skin turned white due to either the disorder itself or medication. Who knows what the truth is.
He had vitiligo but vitiligo does not make you lose pigmentation in an even manner. My significant other has it, and it has created a more mottled skin tone around his hands, etc. So no, the vitiligo does not explain Jackson’s skin tone in his later years.
First off. She’s not a natural blond. Second, it’s called vitiligo and yes, he had it.
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that for a minute. The result of vitiligo is blotchy, uneven skin tone, not smooth, even paleness like MJ had. That is he result of skin bleaching, under a dr ‘s supervision. MJ had a ton of cosmetic surgery, he didn’t just happen to get pale skinned on his own.
His autopsy (or some other medical report at the time of his death) revealed/confirmed he had vitiligo.
He had issues about his appearance seemingly, but I don’t think that cancels out that he had a skin disease/ailment.
Some people “treat” their vitiligo by evenly bleaching all of their skin, as a way of dealing with it.
She is a normal 19-year-old. Bless her, I wish her all the best.
Um, okay.
I don’t understand how she sets an example for “diverse and inclusive beauty”. To me she sounds very naive – not that all 19yos are naive. And sorry to say this, because I don’t have anything against her, who would she *be* if she was not MJ’s daughter.
Said upthread – she believes Michael is her biological father and identifies as half black. That’s why she sees herself as an example for diversity even though she’s not.
Learn the difference between genotype and phenotype.
She always seems a little confused
No girl. We do not need to thank Trump. Does Heather Heyer’s family want us to thank Trump?
This is the same as the “wives and daughters” argument. You don’t thank someone for something you should have been doing already, you’re not doing very well now, and you’re doing because your hand is forced by evil.
Her mother did thank Trump actually. I of course do not know if she wants others to thank him but she herself did.
She’s a bit strange.
How could she not be? She was dealt some really rough cards with the Jacksons. Who in that family had/has her best interest at heart? For me is hard to not overlook the conflicts in that family.
My heart hurts for this young lady. She has already endured some crappy things and has had some mental health issues, i really hope she has good people around her who are more interested in her well being then making money off of her.
I agree @pumpkin. Reading that she’s 19, I am wondering what will change in the family dynamics when she turns 21. I’m afraid to think of what MJ’s adult relatives have done to keep money away from the three siblings, that are legally MJ’s children.
Um, what do you mean who has her best interest at heart? How about her poor grandmother who raised her and her siblings. A thankless job.
I agree that is not an easy family to grow up in, especially losing her dad and all. She appears to have her heart in the right place, I just worry for her as she seems to have an interest in being a celebrity.
all things considered, I think she’s pretty refreshingly normal. Especially for 19. Man, I was super weird at 19.
I was really quiet at 19, so all of these young celebrities talking non-stop is a little weird to me. At 19, I didn’t feel equipped or confident enough to talk about anything even though I don’t think I was super-dumb or anything.
How could she not be “particularly screwed up”? I mean, considering.
No question she’s a beautiful young woman. I wish her the best.
Oh honey. As a blonde, blue eyed, tanned and slim girl with the famous father, you are not breaking or expanding beauty standards. I snorted like I would if Hailey Baldwin said this.
I do truly think her hearts in a good place and she just needs to refine the message a bit, because being honest about the work that goes into a photoshoot is important and good.
I also do not know how to take her saying she is biracial. I will agree with her, because my default is to believe people when they say these things and her father was a PoC, but my heart says girl you are whiiiite. Granted my heart would have said that about Halsey too, so my heart is not always very smart.
Totally agree.
She has olive skin so she probably thinks that means she is biracial. But all over Europe there are blondes like her and in the Middle East.
But she isn’t really a blond. Her hair has been bleached. I would call her natural hair color medium brown.
(Here in Sweden her hair what probably be called medium or even dark brown. But she is definitely not a blond).
When I was young, this California girl look that Paris is sporting was THE look. Add Ugg boots and a short tiered ruffle skirt and that was like 2004 in a capsule.
If we’re talking about Halsey, her dad is black, mom is white.
wait….is halsey NOT white??
im lost
I found this out yesterday and it blew my mind. Yes, Halsey is biracial.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/morganmurrell/halsey-playboy-interview?utm_term=.aj2VW17k3#.ytKMQbkqd
she’s biracial, mother white, father black
People are so uneducated. I blame the media and the public school system.
Delete
Can’t really listen to anything anyone under 25 thinks lol. Hell… thank GOD I don’t have any videos or recordings of me talking at that age because I’d cringe. It’s the whole thinking you know everything, that you’ve got it all figured out, and your plans are a… b… c… – – I just tune out and try not to chuckle.
So what exactly is she doing except for talking about the things she wants to do?
I’m sorry to say it, but she doesn’t sound very educated at all.
She isn’t.
Well I cut her some slack because Im always a bit worried about how her life will turn out. She is still young and is probably in her “Im so different” phase.
Is it too soon to say that a mind is a terrible thing to waste?
Oof. Usually this would be unbearably irritating but since she really believes MJ is her biological dad…
??
Well someone finally said it! She is not black. She was raised by a black man and maybe he is her bio dad, maybe he isn’t but he’s still her dad of course. I don’t really care all that much. And being surrounded by the Jackson family, it makes sense for her to align with them. But the world will never see her as black and she will be treated differently simply for being a blonde, blue eyed, white woman. She doesn’t have to say it out loud to us but she should at least acknowledge it to herself.
If she thinks she is black who are you to judge. Stop judging!
No offense but why would it be OK to consider yourself black when you are white? Color is not skin deep, there is history and culture and society and all privileges and hatred and discrimination associated with race. Why would be OK for Paris to think she is black, and not OK for that woman who pretended for 20y to be black – I don’t remember her name. Just to be clear, I have absolutely nothing against Paris. If anything, I wish she will be safe and grow to be a happy and confident and successful woman.
The difference is that Paris grew up as the daughter of an African-American man and to this day she is convinced that he is her dad. He accepted and raised her as his daughter. With his history as an African American man and all the hatred and discrimination. Her family, her aunts and uncles, her grandparents, etc. They are black. She is part of their community and family. We as outsiders are not allowed to judge or take her away from her family.
@ Pumpkin…because she believes MJ is her biological father. And we don’t really know if he was or not. I’m black. Two of my grandparents were black, but extremely light-skinned (passable) with one having hazel eyes and the other with blue grey eyes. Genetics are funny. And Paris identifying as black is nowhere near the same as that Rachel whatever woman.
Right – have you seen Paula Patton’s son? He’s white as snow but that doesn’t mean he’s not hers.
That boy looks exactly like paula but people are so color obsessed they don’t see he has her eye shape, nose shape and lips. He has her face. It’s so funny to me how much he looks like her and has her facial expressions but people only see his blond hair and white skin.
Except Paula’s son is predominantly white lol? Paula’s biracial herself, so her son’s skin colour is pretty normal. Idk why people are acting shocked when they see him.
He also kind of looks like her.
I think she means well, but I kind of wish she had a talent of some sort. Though I get that it must be tough to be the daughter of someone who was as talented as MJ.
I think the brother had the right idea by going into producing. I always wondered why Tori Spelling didn’t do that (though I certainly think Paris Jackson is way prettier than Tori Spelling). I guess I don’t understand why everyone feels they need to be up front and centre. Sometimes you can be more successful (and make more money) behind the scenes.
I’m disappointed in i-D magazine’s cover choices lately. I miss when they were monthly :/
I wish she’d sober up, take a journey overseas with actual regular kids, and go to school. Even if she wasnt a good grade kid the schedule would benefit her. She isnt famous enough to be recognized in this country or other countries if she traveled budget for the stories it would bring.
God I miss MJ…
I heard that the older son identifies as black…
The only objection I have is that it shouldn’t matter how thin or large someone is a body positive message from any woman is a good. Weight isn’t the only struggle women have with their bodies. It can be stretch marks and cellulite like she said. Small breasts, short legs or neck or big feet. I have never met a woman who when asked didn’t have a complaint.
It feels dismissive.
I will never say my body complaints are the same or nearly as difficult as someone who is fuller figured in our society. But I do experience body shaming sometimes. Right now from stress, I am too thin for my frame but I have been asked if I had a drug problem or an eating disorder. I am a bit sensitive about it from being bullied and teased and called skeleton and Olive Oyle until I filled out more in high school. 5ft 10 at 13 is hard to hide. I tried high-calorie drinks and overeating to make it stop. I had no chest when all of my friends did and I was teased about that too. My neck is longish so I was called giraffe. My hair was whitish blonde for a long time so then it was the albino scarecrow. It hurt and there are scars.
I just want us to be kind to each other no matter our size and support and encourage each other without thin women like me concern trolling fuller figured women and full figured women resenting and thinking support is patronizing or humble bragging. I want to support anyone who struggles with self-love and I hope it is returned. I know some women are condescending and that is uncalled-for but not everyone is like that.
When it gets obnoxious is if I try to give weight loss advice. Then I deserve to be kicked in the butt for tone deafness and to be loudly called out.
Education is important for this reason.
You learn to see the big picture, the grander scheme of things and understand who you really are.
Half the bullshit I spewed at 19 would cancel me to the grown up, older me.
I wish the amazing amount of money and power she has, she would use them to get an education, and then launch real activism instead of giving magazine interviews about how she is changing the world.
She looks like Marcia brady in the second one
Actually, I loved what she said about “why her generation is talking more about body positivity.” She said the racists, etc., are being outnumbered by people with open minds. I love that statement and hope the hate-filled groups are hugely outnumbered in the near future.
tell me how she is diverse beauty. she is white blond, skinny,blue eyes and blond. there was a article here in Brasil saying that Chloe Moretz, Saoirse Ronan,, Mia wasikowska, elle fanning and dakota fanning are diverse beauty. I mean wtf… this world doesnt know what diversity means
Funny how people who are out there actually setting an example for others are never publicly proclaiming how they’re setting an example for others.
I appreciate that she’s bringing up these issues at least, even though she’s not a diverse beauty and is privileged. Cut her some slack, I think she’s doing her best especially after everything she’s been through. She’s still very young, hopefully she’ll realize and do something about it as time goes by and she matures.
She sounds dumb and well-intentioned. In a deeper conversation about beauty standards, she’d be ripped apart, but why do it here? She has so much time to grow.