VIDEO: Mackenzie Phillips: "My Father Was Not A Bad Man"
Sep. 24 2009, Published 1:15 p.m. ET
Mackenzie Phillips, on the promotional trail for her book, High On Arrival, said on the Today Show Thursday that her father, The Mamas And The Papas singer John, was "not a bad man, just a very sick man," despite engaging her in an incestuous relationship throughout her twenties.
VIDEO: MacKenzie Phillips Tells Oprah Her Secrets
The child star of American Graffiti and One Day At A Time fame --who has battled drug addiction for years -- said that she only realized what had happened after waking up in her father's bed the morning of her wedding with her pants down around her ankles, adding that the sex "wasn't consensual by any stretch of the imagination."
Like Phillips, Redmond O’Neal has publically battled drug addiction: Read his story
She said after two years of being molested, she began letting her father make love to her consensually. Phillips said the last straw to all the sex she was having with her dad was a paternity scare after she got pregnant while she was married.
"I got confused, and I never let him touch me again," she said, adding her father graciously paid for the abortion.
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Phillips said she has received a great outpouring from incest survivors since coming forward with her bombshell, saying "it's time for us to bring the incest issue to life."
John Phillips died in 2001 of heart failure.
Mackenzie Phillips new biography, High On Arrival, is in stores now.
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