EXCLUSIVE: Michael Jackson's Family Curse — Inside the Nightmare of Being the King of Pop's Kids After His Daughter Paris Reveals Her Drug-Ravaged Body to the World
Paris Jackson has exposed the struggles she faced being Michael Jackson's child, and focused on her family's troubled legacy.
Nov. 16 2025, Published 12:00 p.m. ET
Paris Jackson has laid bare the cost of being Michael Jackson's daughter, revealing addiction, self-harm and a drug-ravaged body as she marks hard-won sobriety while life inside the family remains fraught.
And RadarOnline.com can reveal her grim story is part of what insiders call the "curse" of being one of Jackson's kids.
Paris Reveals Perforated Septum from Addiction
Paris Jackson revealed the toll of being Michael Jackson’s daughter.
Raised behind the gates of Neverland and home-schooled away from prying eyes, Paris, 27, and her brothers Prince, 28 and Bigi, 23, have navigated adulthood under relentless scrutiny since their troubled father died in Los Angeles in 2009 aged 50 after a drug overdose-related cardiac arrest.
The siblings now carry the burden of his contested legacy as legal fights over the estate rumble on and a biopic, Michael, looms.
This week, in an unflinching Instagram post, Paris revealed to fans her years of heroin addiction had left her with a hole between her nostrils. She said in a clip posted on TikTok she has a perforated septum – a hole in the cartilage inside her nose – which complicates recording vocals.
But she said she will not seek surgery, citing the need to avoid strong post-op medication to protect her sobriety.
Paris confessed: "I realized I never addressed this and it can sometimes be very noticeable.
"I have a really loud whistle because you can hear it when I breathe through my nose and that is because I have what is called a perforated septum."
Hesitant to Risk Sobriety for Surgery
Michael’s children, Paris, Prince and Bigi, lived under intense scrutiny after his 2009 overdose death.
The singer gave her fans a bleak glimpse of the condition by shining her cell phone flashlight up on her nostril, revealing an illuminated tunnel inside.
Paris – who has been open about her past heroin and booze abuse – said about the hole: "It's exactly where you think it's from." She added she had been living with the condition for about seven years, going back to when she was around 20.
Toward the end of the video, Jackson looked into the camera and warned, "Don't do drugs kids."
Paris celebrated half a decade of sobriety earlier this year, and added she was hesitant to have surgery to fix the perforation because she was "almost six years sober" and feared that the after-effects of the procedure could lead to a relapse.
She added: "You have to take pills when you do a surgery that gnarly. And I don't want to f---- with that."
Paris admitted in 2017 several of her many tattoos were designed to hide track marks from drug use and self-harm scars.
She revealed she had attempted suicide "multiple times" before she went on to study at a therapeutic school in Utah.
The Trio's Abnormal Upbringing and Retreat
Paris admitted she hid track marks with tattoos and attempted suicide before entering treatment in Utah.
But her entire family's abnormal upbringing still shadows their lives. In their formative years, Jackson often masked all his kids' faces in public and tightly controlled access as the trio lived at his barmy Neverland ranch.
After his death, guardianship of his three children shifted – first to a grandparent, before a cousin briefly gained temporary custody during a period of family turmoil – and the legal wrangling has scarcely stopped since.
For the youngest, Bigi, adulthood has meant retreat. He lives like a hermit, keeping a low profile while occasionally surfacing alongside Paris and Prince, and has moved to protect his inheritance, filing a lawsuit last year to prevent family money being used in another legal battle – a sign of the tensions that have hung over a fortune widely valued in the billions.
Prince, meanwhile, has worked on charitable projects and media ventures in Los Angeles, honoring his father's memory while acknowledging the weight of expectation.
He has said he hopes the King of Pop would be proud, even as the spotlight rarely fades.
The 'Curse' of Being an MJ Kid
Never Miss an
Daily updates from the heart of Hollywood, right to your inbox
By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you’re agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
A new Michael Jackson biopic and revived abuse allegations drew fresh attention to their troubled legacy.
Bigi, who shed his childhood nickname of 'Blanket' years after his father infamously dangled him off a Berlin hotel balcony when he was nine months old, has developed a passion for film amid his reclusiveness – but it's behind-the-camera work.
While Paris and Prince appear more often in public, even their joint outings are rare. The trio's occasional reunions underscore how carefully they live largely in private – a lesson learned from a childhood of concealment.
A source said: "Bigi is burying himself in hiding from the world, and Prince is obsessed with trying to help people.
"Paris' troubles speak for themselves. Being one of MJ's kids is clearly a curse."
The kids' separate torments are unlikely to lift.
New attention on them is certain as Michael – a studio biopic starring a cousin – approaches release, and talk of a follow-up to the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland resurfaces about the allegations of child abuse that dogged Jackson until he was pushed into an early grave by his addiction to tranquilizer propofol – a hospital-grade drug he used to put him to sleep.
