Transcript of Paris Jackson Interview on Call Her Daddy Podcast

But it’s not something that I do every single month.

ALEX COOPER: Wait, so was it just taken off of Instagram because you were just naked? Okay — you were like, “I tried, I blurred out my nipples, but let a girl live.” I had a friend that was like, “Oh, my friends and I put water” — I think they say “outside” — “to have the—” Have you ever done that?

PARIS JACKSON: Oh yeah, I didn’t.

ALEX COOPER: I do nothing, Paris.

PARIS JACKSON: That’s like, yeah, that’s the standard, you know — the moon water, or you charge your crystals and stuff.

Saturn Returns

ALEX COOPER: Okay, okay — Saturn returns. You said you’ve gone through a couple Saturn returns. To anyone that’s watching, it’s like, how can I survive one? Do you have any advice for us?

PARIS JACKSON: Um, I am in my Saturn return right now. It started actually on my brother’s birthday this year, so I’m a little late.

ALEX COOPER: How are we doing?

PARIS JACKSON: You know, it’s funny because a close friend of mine is like this too. My Saturn return might be one of the unremarkable ones just because of all of the calamity that happens earlier on. So sometimes — because typically the Saturn return is what happens when, like, I know people that have left the church they were a part of during that time, or they got a divorce during that time, or they became a mother during that time. It’s kind of like so much of your life shifts, and it has a lot to do with identity. But so much has happened leading up to my Saturn return that I feel like maybe this is just one of the unremarkable ones. I could also be speaking too soon because we’re only, like — maybe it’ll be the opposite.

ALEX COOPER: Yeah, yeah, maybe it’s going to — you’re like, “My life — there’s been so many trials and tribulations that so far this is feeling pretty easy.”

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah, I’m chilling.

ALEX COOPER: You’re kind of coasting through your Saturn return.

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah.

ALEX COOPER: Literally every piece of wood we need to knock on. Okay. Let’s talk about — because I was thinking about so much of your life.

PARIS JACKSON: Yes.

ALEX COOPER: There has been a lot that you have gone through. And how old are you?

PARIS JACKSON: I’m 28.

Growing Up With Music

ALEX COOPER: And you’re only 28 years old. Music —

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah.

ALEX COOPER: — has been such a huge part of your life. I know you have a new album coming out August 21st. And I want to get into all that, but I feel like to do it, we almost need to go back to the beginning, because you are someone who literally came into this world and music, it’s like in your blood. What are your earliest memories around music being a part of your life?

PARIS JACKSON: It’s kind of like asking a dolphin, or any kind of fish, “What was it like when you entered the water?” I mean, only because it was around constantly. I was raised on the Beatles catalog. I was raised on a lot of classical music. I was raised on, you know, Tchaikovsky. I always butcher the name — I don’t know if it’s Debussy or Debussy, but my dad used to say Debussy. And so I don’t know if that’s correct pronunciation, but I grew up on a lot of just — music was around all the time.

Life at Neverland

ALEX COOPER: For those who don’t know, your dad was Michael Jackson, and you grew up in this place called Neverland, which I feel like is so famous, and everyone thinks of that word and they almost think they know what that means — known for the amusement parks and the zoo in the backyard. But you actually lived there. Can you explain to someone, even maybe our Gen Z people who aren’t as familiar, what was a normal day in your childhood like at Neverland?

PARIS JACKSON: So, so I didn’t grow up there. It was only the first few years of my life that I was there. And I’d wake up and I’d go to school.

ALEX COOPER: And you were homeschooled, right?

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah. Yeah. I’d wake up and we’d go to the room that was our classroom, and we would go to school. And it was made the — like, very congruent line throughout my childhood that kind of started there and then just continued on wherever we went — was, if you’re good and you do your chores and you do your homework and you do the things that you’re supposed to do, then on the weekends you can go see some animals, and you can go ride some rides, and you can go to the movies.

It was made very, very clear that all of the attractions there were not for us, that did not belong to us. That was for, you know, underprivileged children and children that were terminally ill that couldn’t go to like Disneyland.

And that continued on even when we were — because at one point we wouldn’t stay in one place for more than a year, and we hotel-hopped a lot. And so it was, you know, if we were living in Vegas, it’s like, “Okay, if you’re good, you can go to Circus Circus on the weekends.” Or, like, we were in some random place in Virginia — “Okay, if you’re good, you can go to Chuck E. Cheese this weekend.”

So it was always, you know, same thing with television. We weren’t allowed to watch television or movies and stuff either unless we were studying it for film with the sound off, or, you know, it was on the weekends if we had done everything we were supposed to do.

ALEX COOPER: Okay. So you weren’t like running around at an amusement park when you’re super, super young? Would’ve been cool.

PARIS JACKSON: But no, no — I probably would’ve grown up to be an asshole.

ALEX COOPER: But no, no, but you were grounded, and you were like, “We have our studies and maybe we’ll get to see some of the animals at the zoo on the weekend.”

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah.

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ALEX COOPER: Obviously the world knew your dad as the King of Pop, but how would you have described your dad?

Remembering Michael Jackson

PARIS JACKSON: Really funny guy. That was my best friend.

ALEX COOPER: Do you think that your humor is similar to his or different?

PARIS JACKSON: I think our humor usually tends to come from our siblings and parents. That’s usually where it kind of — and also the region in which we grow up.

ALEX COOPER: Three brothers. You’re the only girl.

PARIS JACKSON: Yes.

ALEX COOPER: I feel like when you’re the only girl in the family — correct me if I’m wrong — there’s like a special treatment, or there’s things that you can be like, “Oh, I’m the only girl, like, I get to do XYZ with my parent because I’m the only girl.” Did you have anything that was your favorite thing that you got to do with your dad because you were the girl of the family?

PARIS JACKSON: There was definitely a focus on making sure the love felt equal. There was definitely — I definitely noticed an effort in treating everyone equally. Um, I definitely was Daddy’s little princess. I think that just happens with sons and mothers and fathers and daughters. There’s just this special bond that you can’t put into words. But, I mean, it’s a bummer when you get a little bit older and, you know, like when we started going to regular school, my brothers could have sleepovers at their friends’ places, but I can only have my friends — like, there are certain rules where some guys get a little more freedom.

ALEX COOPER: Yes, they have. There’s more leniency with boys than as a girl. You’re like, “Wait, why? It’s a bummer.”

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah.

ALEX COOPER: “Why can’t I?” And it’s like, well, unfortunately the world we live in.

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah.

Meeting Her Mother

ALEX COOPER: You didn’t really grow up with your mother. You didn’t have a relationship with her when you were growing up, right? How was that explained to you as a kid?

PARIS JACKSON: Um, you know, eventually — I remember kind of asking about it when I was probably around like 10 or 11, and the answers I got were, you know, sufficient to me. I was just like, “Oh, what’s her name?” And I got told her name, and I’m like, “All right, cool.” Like, you know, it was — moved on. And we connected when I was about 15, and then really started getting closer towards, like, the end of my teen years and things like that.

ALEX COOPER: Thinking about you at 15 years old, Paris, and you’re like, “Oh, you’re going to meet your mom for the first time.” Do you remember if you were nervous?

PARIS JACKSON: I think — I mean, I remember coming downstairs and she was in the living room with my grandma. I came in and I was just like, “Hey, Mom.” And she was like, “Hi.” I sat down, we talked for a second, and then we went out for the day and just hung out.

ALEX COOPER: And you called her mom right away?

PARIS JACKSON: She — I mean, she’s a Sag, so she’s got the fire. And I’m an Aries, I got the fire. We’re very similar. You know, I think what’s really cool about my process, just in general in all things, is learning how expectations kind of mess us up. And if I walk into a relationship with expectations, I’m probably going to end up being maybe disappointed or frustrated or irritated, or a resentment will be born or something, you know. And when I walk into something and I don’t have expectations, it creates this really cool space for something organic to just blossom.

ALEX COOPER: But I do think that’s a pretty impressive approach at such a young age. Like, that’s a lot of insight to have at 15.

PARIS JACKSON: I’d say I’ve gotten — it’s gotten more refined.

ALEX COOPER: Okay. Over the years, you figured it out.

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah.

ALEX COOPER: I also was thinking, like, something that I know you’ve said before is — and similar to where you’re like, “I didn’t know anything other than music” — like, you didn’t really realize that your father, for a while, was famous. You’ve even publicly said, “I didn’t even know his name was Michael.”

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah.

ALEX COOPER: How do you think you started to realize though?

PARIS JACKSON: Well, I think I knew he was famous. I just didn’t know how famous.

ALEX COOPER: Fair, fair, fair, fair.

PARIS JACKSON: I mean, yeah, I definitely — there was definitely part of me that, like, when I looked out my hotel window, and it was one of the times where the alias didn’t work, and there’s just like a sea of people with signs and stuff, I’m like — there was — I’m not so naive to think, “Yeah, everyone experiences this.” I just didn’t understand the lengths.

Growing Up in the Spotlight

ALEX COOPER: Something that I feel like so many people were obsessed with was how your dad would have you and your brothers wear masks and cover your faces when you would go out in public. How did you make sense of that though, at the time, when you were a kid being like, “Okay, put on your masks”?

PARIS JACKSON: I mean, it just made sense, because it was like, “Oh yeah, if you do this now, then you can go to Chuck E. Cheese and be normal this weekend, because no one will know who you are.” Like, that made sense to me.

ALEX COOPER: But it really pissed the press off.

PARIS JACKSON: What doesn’t?

ALEX COOPER: Fair.

PARIS JACKSON: What doesn’t?

ALEX COOPER: I think that people probably felt entitled to you guys as children of, like, “He’s this figure that we get, and he’s ours, and we get to comment and look at him — like, we should be able to see the children too, because you’re part of that entity.” And that was obviously a protection that was put in place for you guys. Did you ever feel like it was scary when you would go out and have masks on and people were trying to see your face?

PARIS JACKSON: Um, I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m trying to think, like, what scared me as a kid — spiders, loss. But I don’t know that that was scary. I always felt, you know, protected. We always had security. And, you know, sometimes crowds would get a little crazy, but there was still this — you know, there’s an adult you can grab onto, right?

But what’s also so cool about all of it is seeing how my experience can assist other people. I have a few other people in my life that are in pretty similar situations, that are several years younger than me, and I just get to be a friend. And my phone’s on, and that is the coolest thing with all things — whether it is being a female with certain scary experiences, or being in the public eye from such a young age, or being someone in recovery. It’s like I have all these experiences that I can use to give other people, and I never tell people what to do, but if they ask me, I’m like, “Well, this is what worked for me and this is what didn’t work for me. Do with it as you will.”

And it’s taken me a very long time to get to where I am right now. This last year has been the happiest year of my life, and thank God I’m in this place right now. I may not have said those exact words a few years ago, but where I’m at with it now is like, “Oh, everything happens for a reason,” whether I’m going to see that reason now, or I’m going to see it in 50 years, or I’m going to see it when I die. I don’t know. But one day it’s going to make sense.

ALEX COOPER: It’s like you trust the universe.

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah.

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The Day of Her Father’s Memorial

ALEX COOPER: You were 11 when your dad died and you spoke at his memorial. What do you remember about that day?

PARIS JACKSON: You know, I did this really cool exercise last year where — and I think this helps with my perspective shift on just life in general — I wrote out just a short two-page life story through the eyes of the victim. And then I sat with it, and I went through and I wrote another two pages, same stories but not through the eyes of the victim, and through this kind of zoomed-out version.

And looking at, like, maybe these scary things that happened, or these hardships that happened, or whatever, and looking for what were points of initiation, what were points of, like, a jumping-off point, what were these little pieces that would later be alchemized into medicine for other people. And so a lot of my perspective on things like that have just been like, “Oh, this was some form of energetic initiation to get me further along on my path.”

ALEX COOPER: What story was easier to write — the victim or the more zoomed-out lens?

PARIS JACKSON: I say that because of where I was at, at the time — probably the zoomed-out lens.

ALEX COOPER: Oh, interesting.

PARIS JACKSON: I saw this Ram Dass thing recently that kind of explores basically these two roles you can be in, which is either the victim or the creator. And he — I’m going to butcher this — but he said something along the lines of, anytime we are identifying with kind of just our human selves — “this is what I like, this is what I don’t like, this is how I spend my time, this is my hobby, this is a label that a family member or a friend or maybe some asshole online gave me” — anytime we are identifying with those things, we are in victim. When we shed ourselves of all of these roles and we shed ourselves of all of these labels and we get to our true essence, that is when we are in creator.

I’ve also seen this kind of outlook — it’s like a through line across multiple cultures and even in some religions — where there is this kind of idea around true essence stripped of all these things that put us in a position of maybe self-pity or something like that.

ALEX COOPER: I was talking to my mom about this the other day. She always has said to me, like, there are things that can have happened to you that are horrible. But you have to choose to live with victim mentality. And if you do that, then you are essentially saying that “I have no autonomy over my life.” There are moments where you did not have autonomy and something happened to you and you actually were a victim. But to live in the victim mentality — like, you’re stripping yourself of any ability to have power. Then where do you get to rise up and be like, “I’m — no, I’m in control now”? So you’re constantly just — everyone else is in control of you, you have no control over your own life. So I get what you’re saying there, where it’s like you have to, in some way—

PARIS JACKSON: — at some point it does become my responsibility to heal, and to start taking care of myself, and to be like, “Okay, this god-awful thing happened. How do I use this to be of service to someone else completely?”

ALEX COOPER: And in some capacity it does. Then that actually takes, first, you putting yourself first.

PARIS JACKSON: It feeds into my life purpose. It feeds into giving me life. You know, so, like, I don’t like the idea of people having regrets. I don’t.

ALEX COOPER: I agree. You know, being that young, was there any question of you speaking at the memorial, or were you like, “I want to do this”?

PARIS JACKSON: Oh, it kind of just happened in the moment. It was kind of like, on stage, where it was like — they looked and they’re like, “Is one of the kids going to say something?” And no one moved. So I was like, “Okay, fuck it, we ball.” And it just happened. That’s a big reason why it’s like, “Okay, this must have been some kind of energetic initiation.” And it’s funny, because a lot of my life has been spent in front of microphones.

ALEX COOPER: And did you feel any pressure in that moment?

PARIS JACKSON: Well, because when eyes turn and they’re like, “Someone’s got to say something,” it—

ALEX COOPER: I don’t—

PARIS JACKSON: I have not gone back to watch it to see how quickly it all happened, but it felt like it happened very slowly, and it felt like “someone’s got to say something — little bro’s not going to do it, older bro’s not moving.”

ALEX COOPER: All right, you just spoke from the heart.

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah.

Processing Grief and Moving in With Her Grandmother

ALEX COOPER: After that point in your life, I feel like everything, it seems like, shifted. You went to live with your grandmother, right? How was that time in your life? You’re processing grief, you’re going through loss, you’re publicly — everyone’s looking at you. Talk to me. What was that like?

PARIS JACKSON: That was rough, dude. That was like — I didn’t have social skills. I’d been hanging out with cousins and my brothers and adults, so I didn’t know how to interact with peers very well. So I had a crash course in gaining social skills, for sure.

ALEX COOPER: And I feel like I’ve seen you’ve talked about how you hung out with more, whether you sought older friends or you just were around adults more in your life. How do you think that kind of made you grow up maybe faster than other peers your age?

PARIS JACKSON: I don’t know. I think I was very — live fast and hard. I wanted to grow up fast. There was something in me that wanted to live as much life as possible. And I think maybe that contributed to some poor choices in my young adulthood life, and whatever. But I just wanted to experience everything.

ALEX COOPER: When you look back, do you think you can pinpoint the why?

PARIS JACKSON: I just had a graspiness with everything. You know, I’m just the type of — I have that kind of addictive personality where I will be reachy and graspy and find ways to get into consuming relationships with all things. Whereas, for example, I know some people that — you know, I’m the type of person that, like, if I have a hit of weed or a drink, I’m going to go back on heroin. But I know some other people that mess around with heroin and now they can have a drink at a party, or they can do MDMA at a festival. I don’t know what that is. I think everyone’s maybe different, but I am just of the variety that is — I will turn Pilates into an addiction. I will turn rock climbing into an addiction.

ALEX COOPER: Like, I—

PARIS JACKSON: — am just constantly, historically, reached outside of myself to find things to change or manage how I’m feeling and thinking. And so much of this last year, being now in my seventh year — so I have six years of recovery — is like, “Okay, what’s it like to be in right relationship with myself, and what’s it like to not be in consuming relationships with different things?” I do have a consuming relationship with tobacco at the moment. But for the most part, just being like, “Okay, how can I be in right relationship?”

Addiction and the Path to Sobriety

ALEX COOPER: I want to talk a little bit more about what you were just talking about, because you have been open not only about your addiction but your journey to sobriety. And I love how you said earlier, like, things that you’ve gone through, you’ve been able to connect with so many people. And this is something you kind of — I know you’ve said dealt with in your teenage years — when do you remember your relationship to drugs and alcohol kind of beginning?

PARIS JACKSON: Probably 8th, 9th grade. But that kind of reachiness started much younger. I think I was maybe around 7, 8, 9 when I started to just kind of reach for things outside of myself, whether it was a person or food, or, you know, just survival skills, I would say. Like self-harm, for example, is probably not a living skill, it’s a survival skill. Just things like that. It’s kind of always been present — just this idea of, like, “I think I need something to help me manage.”

ALEX COOPER: And did anyone close to you when you were that young know that you were going through that?

PARIS JACKSON: I don’t think so.

ALEX COOPER: I mean, I hid it well.

PARIS JACKSON: I hid it well. I think people that navigate through life managing that way tend to learn secrecy pretty well, pretty quickly.

ALEX COOPER: That’s what I’ve — I’ve had a lot of people on, and people often talk about how they used substances to kind of escape or numb feelings. What was your experience like? Does that resonate?

PARIS JACKSON: I mean, I enjoyed the effect produced by whatever I was doing. It was just to feel different, I think, than how I was feeling. So just controlling and managing my thoughts and feelings, and just using other things to do that.

ALEX COOPER: How were you feeling when you weren’t using?

PARIS JACKSON: Uh, restless, irritable, discontented — just very like not comfortable in my own skin, you know. And that does tend to happen with a lot of people that, you know, have very addictive personalities. When you just quit cold turkey and you don’t have any kind of replacement program, you kind of have to — it’s like a white-knuckling process. And so going through life white-knuckling it is rough. And so there needs to be — I found, for someone like me, some kind of replacement technique.

ALEX COOPER: You’ve talked about how you were raised to have good morals, but alcohol kind of brought out this version of yourself that you really didn’t like.

PARIS JACKSON: I’m a cunt.

ALEX COOPER: Can you share when you started to realize that? And was it you realized it through yourself, or was it people telling you?

PARIS JACKSON: Mm-hmm. I was starting to — I was starting to hear stories of what would happen when I was blacking out, and they started progressively getting worse. And I basically scared myself into getting help.

ALEX COOPER: Oh, that’s — I mean, I can imagine how hard that is too, because at first — I don’t know, please correct me if I’m wrong, but you want to be in denial at first, because this is something that you’re using and it’s making you feel good. And so to hear those stories at first — when do you think it went from you being like, “That’s not that bad,” to like, “Oh my God, maybe I do need to take these stories into account of what everyone’s telling me, and I do need to listen”?

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah. I mean, it had happened — it was like end of 2019. Actually, I got sober the first week of 2020. It was, yeah, you know, I realized I couldn’t stop. After I’d gotten rid of some of the harder stuff, and I realized even with weed and alcohol, I just couldn’t stop, and it was just getting worse. And I had my breaking point, I had my bottom, and it just kind of did it for me. And so then it was like, “Okay, what do I do? How do I rebuild the foundation? How do I come up with some kind of daily thing to keep me good and develop a spiritual life, and find ways to be of service?”

ALEX COOPER: That must have been hard. That was during COVID, so you were trying to get sober during COVID. How was that?

PARIS JACKSON: It was really fun. It was really fun. I found a really cool community of people that were somewhere around my age. Some of them were a little bit younger, that were also newly sober, and we all just kind of hung out and spent almost every day together. And it was — I had this camaraderie and community and fellowship of, “Okay, you know what I’m going through, I know what you’re going through,” and there’s just this understanding. I think community is so important, because I’ve heard some people say that the opposite of addiction is connection.

Sobriety, Friendship, and Right Relationship

ALEX COOPER: And so having that kind of, like, “I’ve got my people, they’ve got me” — when you started to get sober, what was the self-reflection on how that time in your life had impacted the relationships? And did you also realize certain relationships weren’t serving you now that you were sober?

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah, I mean, the people I was getting high with, I probably shouldn’t keep hanging out with them. Like my fucking drug dealer, I probably shouldn’t keep hanging out with them, you know? There were some that were more obvious, and there were also some that took a lot longer to — you know, I’ve had some friendship breakups that were worse than romantic breakups, and those are devastating.

But it’s really started to shift in this last year, learning how to be in right relationship with myself. I’ve started noticing ripple effects in all of my relationships. Even one of my best friends — I would say my best friend — who isn’t in therapy, never really had any issues with drugs or alcohol, and doesn’t drink anymore but still smokes weed. Just a very normal person. We have so much more — we’re able to have uncomfortable conversations. We’re able to foster trust and safety and more closeness and more intimacy. We’ve been friends for 10 years, but it’s really, in the last year, I’ve seen how adjusting how I am with myself is also affecting my relationships with friends, with family. It’s really cool.

ALEX COOPER: That’s incredible, Paris, because I feel like anyone in my life that I have personally dealt with — obviously, who I’m there with them when they’re dealing with addiction, or who I’ve interviewed — it’s like there’s something so beautiful when you do get to that point where you start to see yourself and pour love into yourself and you’re not numbing, and you’re like, you essentially become lucid again, and you’re like, “Oh my God.” And first it’s uncomfortable. From what a lot of my friends have told me, they’re like, “Very uncomfortable, I want to crawl out of my skin.”

PARIS JACKSON: Very uncomfortable. But it’s very, like, hand on heart, gentle, gentle, “move through it, this is medicine.” This discomfort is medicine. And sometimes we don’t want to take our fucking medicine because it tastes like shit, but it does what it needs to do.

ALEX COOPER: And then you get to the point where you’re now with your friend who you’ve had for 10 years, and to say that this sobriety and this place in your life where you’re now able to pour so much self-love into yourself has unlocked a complete different side of your relationship. I think that’s what’s been so beautiful — everyone who sat in that chair and talked about such different experiences, but there is a commonality of, “Oh my God, once you push through that really, really hard moment” — and it’s always going to be hard — but there is this light at the end of the tunnel of, “Oh my God, I’ve never felt more connected to certain relationships and, most importantly, myself.” And how beautiful is that, that you’re granted that at the end of that?

PARIS JACKSON: Damn, it’s — I mean, there’s nothing more rewarding. And I also see that it is affecting my songwriting, it’s affecting my ability to express myself. I wrote a song — I’ve only ever really written songs about boys and heartbreak and drugs. And a few weeks ago I wrote one for my best friend, and I put it up on Instagram and she loved it, and we’re both crying, and it’s just this beautiful — I wrote a song about a friendship breakup recently, and I’m being more descriptive. I’m shying away from the vagueness that I used to have, because I used to think, “Oh well, the more vague I am, the more people can relate.” And it’s like, “Well, I’m just going to write about my experience,” and I’m just going to be, you know — I know it’ll be open for interpretation.

Some of the lyrics are a little, like, “40 seasons passed and silver lions, silver lines and tales to tell.” That’s “40 Seasons” — 10 years we’ve been friends. “Silver lines” is she’s starting to get gray hair. There’s certain things in there where it’s like little inside moments that she’ll know what I’m saying, but other people won’t. And then there’s other things that are very specific. Like the tagline in that little song that I wrote is, “If we’re all just pieces of the people that we meet, you’ve got the biggest piece of me.” That’s not open for interpretation. That is exactly what it means.

ALEX COOPER: Is it unsettling putting that out into the world, because you are somewhat of a private person?

PARIS JACKSON: You know, when it’s art, that’s a whole other thing. There may be certain things that I may not want to talk about in an interview, or I may not want to talk about on my fucking Instagram. But with art, I’m going to be honest. I’m going to share my experience, and then — maybe I will talk about it later as it relates to the music, but let’s talk about your music.

The New Album and “Zombies in Love”

ALEX COOPER: Yeah, because there’s a lot that inspired me, because a lot of what you write about are thematically things that I love to talk about on the show. Your new single, “Zombies in Love,” it talks about — correct me if I’m wrong — but being in a relationship built around shared pain and escapism, essentially. When you look back at that relationship, how did that dynamic eventually become unsustainable for you?

PARIS JACKSON: I mean, we were trying on heroin, so I don’t think it was ever sustainable. But getting sober, yeah, that allowed it.

ALEX COOPER: What did that relationship teach you about healing on your own versus healing in a partnership?

PARIS JACKSON: That one, not so much, just because the whole focus, getting out of that, was like, “I’m newly sober, I need to just not do drugs and alcohol.” That was the primary focus, and it was really hunkering down and just doing a lot of work on myself surrounding addiction. This last breakup that I went through was a lot more like, “Oh, how do I not go back to old coping skills?” Like, I may be able to not touch drugs and alcohol, but what are some other things?

ALEX COOPER: This—

PARIS JACKSON: — the graspiness. What else am I being graspy with that I can just not do? Go in here, connect there, and really — that was a huge focus. I did this whole thing, right? A lot of people — I know I did for a long time — like, “Oh, I’ll just get under someone to get over someone.” That historically has never worked. And going from person to person doesn’t work for me. So it was very much like, “I’m not even going to go on a date. I’m not going to flirt. I’m not going to do prolonged eye contact for like X amount of months.” Prolonged eye contact — I’m not going to do an extended hug to see if they — just to see if they’ll do it back, and to see if I can, because there is intrigue and there’s validation in that. We’re not doing any of that. We’re just going to — we are tunnel vision, eyes on our own paper. We’re fucking locking in, and we are just — Paris.

It was one of the most uncomfortable — at first uncomfortable, but one of the best things I ever did for myself. Full-blown reset, full-blown detox. And I really got my priorities straight. I really got the room to be like, “Oh, what are the things that really make me happy? How do I listen to myself and listen to my intuition?” My hearing has gotten a lot stronger. And yeah, that was one of the best things that I could have done for myself after that split.

Calling Off Her Engagement

ALEX COOPER: Can we talk about that though? Because last summer, you called off your engagement.

PARIS JACKSON: Mm-hmm.

ALEX COOPER: And that takes a lot of, I think, courage to end something when you have at one point decided, “I want to spend the rest of my life with this person.” And then obviously you ended it. I don’t know who — was it a mutual decision?

PARIS JACKSON: It was a choice that I needed to make to be happy.

ALEX COOPER: Can you, with what you’re comfortable — because I have so many women who listen, and it’s like, I feel like there is something that happens, especially as women, where we can get more sucked into, like, “Oh my God, I’ve spent so much time with this person. I’ve invested in this. I’ve spent—”

PARIS JACKSON: — there’s a name for that. I don’t know what it is. My friend said it the other day. There is a name for that when, “Oh, because I’ve invested X amount of time, I have to keep going with it.”

ALEX COOPER: Oh, well — that, in business, it’s called the sunk cost fallacy, which is so unsexy, and that’s probably not for — but it’s not what it is though. It’s basically the sunk cost fallacy is, like, if you have spent so much time pouring into this one project and then if a better option arises — whether it’s, “Oh my God, I see that I don’t want this,” or, “I see that this could — I could get this, but it could take two seconds,” even though I’ve spent years building this and it’s going to be better for me — don’t just stay with the thing because you’ve invested so much time in it if it’s not actually what’s the best option for you.

And so I can’t help but wonder for you — how did you know? Although I’ve invested in this publicly, I’ve spoken about it, there’s a lot going on — how did you know you made the right decision to end an engagement?

PARIS JACKSON: Well, as far as the public side of it goes, I’ve had people write about my breakups before, so it’s not that big of a deal. This is also my second engagement that I called off. The first one — I don’t know if you could count the first one, it was real to me, even though we were strung out on drugs and the ring was one that he bought with my money without me knowing. It was still like the love was so real for me in that, that first one.

So this was, like — it was the second one. No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t that casual. No, it was very, like — there were times where I did try and end it, but there was this little voice being like, “But what if, however long down the line” — and this is a voice that a lot of us have — “if I just hung in there a little bit longer, it would have gotten better.” And so I’m the person that needs to be sure, really, really needs to be sure. Even though I have a therapist, a clinical psychologist, a coach — I have a whole council of people, friends that know a lot about relationships and all the things that I was going through in life at the time, that are like, “Honey,” asking me the right questions of, “Why would you stay?” And my answers weren’t good enough. My answers weren’t good enough.

Just because I’ve realized just because someone is a good person doesn’t mean they’re my person. And I have to be happy. And I realize that my non-negotiables are allowed to be non-negotiables. And if these big major needs are not being met, it doesn’t matter that you’re a good person and you’re not going to cheat on me. That’s not a reason to stay, Paris.

Especially also because I think I live in a city where — it happened, where loyalty is not the biggest thing. And so sometimes I maybe get it in my head that that’s how most people are. I have some of the most incredible men in my life that love their wives, that love their kids, that are just such stand-up dudes that would never dream of messing that up. So I know that that exists out there. I can examine the evidence and be like, “Okay, it does exist. This isn’t the one and only person that’s not going to do that to me.”

On Cheating, Loyalty, and Raising the Bar

ALEX COOPER: I know. Isn’t that so fucking sad that we as women, if you are in a heterosexual relationship, you’re like, “Oh my God, this man — I’m convinced all of these men cheat.” Right? And so then you’re like, “I found one that is, without a doubt, this loyalty — oh my God, I would be an idiot to let this go.”

PARIS JACKSON: And it’s like, guys, it is kind of bare minimum for them to not cheat.

ALEX COOPER: Like, we need to start looking at that. That’s not a boundary. That shouldn’t even be a prerequisite. That is just — that is what a relationship is, is someone not cheating on you. So, but we have been conditioned — and I agree — and, like, why do we convince ourselves that that’s enough? And then, “Well, he’s going to — he won’t cheat on me.”

PARIS JACKSON: I was talking to my friend about this a few days ago, because she likes my take on relationships and certain things. And so I’d only share my experience, and I don’t give suggestions or advice ever. But, you know, sometimes when one thing is being met, we’ll disregard the other things. And what was so awesome about — I’ll give you an example for this person — was she really wants like a kind of caretaker person. And if there is a guy who does that one thing, she’s like, “Cool, he’s the one,” and is not going to look at all the other things that make him one of the worst people to ever be with. But we’re willing to overlook a lot of things and paint over them because this one thing is being met.

And so the conversation kind of becomes about, “Okay, what’s the need? Caretaking. Cool. How do I give that to myself so that when homie comes knocking, I’m like, I’m good on this. What else can you bring to the table? What can you bring to the table that I don’t already have covered?”

And what’s been so cool about that time that I took after my last relationship was allowing myself to kind of — the clouds part. I’m not willing to overlook a bunch of things. I can be a little bit pickier, you know — the bar can be raised a bit, because it’s historically been very low.

And I remember there was this one time — once I was like, “Okay, I’m going to chill. I’m not going to actively seek people out, but if something happens, it happens.” And there was someone — I got on the phone with him, and it was a 15-minute phone call. And at one point he made a comment about, like, “Yeah, I just can’t picture my life without weed.” And as someone that was one of the biggest stoners you will ever meet — I loved weed, that was one of my favorite things in the world, to the point where, out of my friend group, I was the only one that was able to keep up with Snoop Dogg one time when we all smoked with him, which was like the coolest story ever, to say that I was able to do that. But where I’m at in life now — I don’t judge it.

ALEX COOPER: I—

PARIS JACKSON: — because I loved it so much, I understand when people want to do that. But because it’s not a part of my life at all, I’m not going to overlook that and be with someone that does it all day, every day. So I’m like, “Cool, okay, thanks for your time,” click. I’m not going to even bother with the first date.

ALEX COOPER: No, I love what you’re saying so much, and I do think this all goes to — I’m so happy that — it’s so, I love my job, because had we met a couple years ago, we would’ve had a fascinating conversation. And now that we’re meeting here, we’re also having a fascinating conversation, because you’re at such a different point in your life than you were a couple years ago. Same with me.

And I love what you’re talking about, because when you get to that place where you start to analyze and realize, “Oh my God, if I can fill myself up in all these areas,” these romantic partners are going to look so different, because I’m not going to be like, “There’s this one wound that I have and it’s this one thing” — for example, the caregiver, “I need this person.” If you don’t need that anymore, then you’re kind of like, “What do you have?” And you get to kind of look at the whole picture as opposed to them filling the void — whether it’s your childhood trauma and this one person fits that one need and they fix it for you — then you literally are putting yourself in a position where you are essentially accepting way less than you actually deserve, because you actually have to fill the void. They’re never going to fill it. It’s going to be a stopgap.

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah, I was going to say — and this is, I can only ever really speak from my experience — if it is coming from a wounded place, if there’s a specific trauma or specific wound, even if, say, they give you the exact script for reassurance that you wrote out for them, it’s not going to be enough.

ALEX COOPER: It’s not.

PARIS JACKSON: It’s not going to be enough.

ALEX COOPER: It’s not.

PARIS JACKSON: They can do everything right.

ALEX COOPER: Yes. It’s not enough, because you have to actually get whole within yourself. He can only help for so long, or she can only help for so long. And then, eventually, once they give you the 100% maximum effort on caregiving, or whatever, validation or whatever, eventually you’re still going to go to sleep at night and it’d be like, “Ding ding, I still don’t feel whole in that area of my life.” And you’re going to realize, “Oh my God, I picked this person because I thought they could fill me up there.” And guess what — that’s nice, they do that for you, but you have to do it for you first. And when you realize that, you’re like, “Shit, okay, back to the drawing board.” But that’s what you just did. You went and you cleansed yourself. No eye contact, no long hugs. Paris, I’m dying. Every girl’s even like, “Okay, maybe I need to try that, dude.”

PARIS JACKSON: I’m very like — I am the lead-with-the-chin kind of person, where it’s just like, “Oh, we’re getting sober. We’re going all the way. Oh, we’re doing this. We’re going all the way.” I’m very much like, you know, stage dive into the audience at full speed. Don’t hesitate. Like, jump.

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How to End a Relationship

ALEX COOPER: Okay, can you give any advice on how to navigate a conversation where you are ending a relationship? Because the amount of women who write into me and are like, “I’m staying half the reason because I don’t know how to fucking end this” — like, that is heartbreaking to do to someone you love.

PARIS JACKSON: If homegirl’s got to stay in that so much to the point where she hits a breaking point before she finally has the conversation, then that’s maybe the experience she needs to have.

ALEX COOPER: Yeah.

PARIS JACKSON: Just like — I’ve had friends in recovery that I’ve gotten sober with, and they go out. What am I going to do? Be like, “You need to get sober”—

ALEX COOPER: No, no, no.

PARIS JACKSON: “You need to stop drinking, I’m going to tell you what to do.” That’s going to make them drink more. It’s like, “Hey, I’m here.” You’re going to go — if you need to go out and do more research and realize, “Oh, I have a problem and I can’t do this in moderation,” that’s the experience you need to have.

ALEX COOPER: Is there anything that worked for you in the—

PARIS JACKSON: I will say what didn’t work for me.

ALEX COOPER: Okay.

PARIS JACKSON: And this kind of goes across the board for previous relationships. Tapering doesn’t work. Tapering is not — and I see it happen also. I have a couple friends that aren’t maybe in the middle of a divorce, and I can also observe and be like, “Oh, maybe this isn’t just my experience.” Tapering has not historically worked for me, and no contact is one of the most effective and rapid ways of healing. If I had to make a suggestion — a light suggestion.

ALEX COOPER: Light.

PARIS JACKSON: If there’s any kind of spiritual practice you can bring into it before having the conversation, I would recommend that. Whether you have a higher power, or you have multiple higher powers, or it’s the universe, or it’s literally anything — prayer, meditation, anything like that. Bringing that into it. And honesty without causing harm, which is — it’s very much case by case. It’s hard to give one blanket “here’s the advice for everybody going through a break.”

Codependency

ALEX COOPER: I agree, I agree with that. Another song off of your new album, “Stitched,” it seems to explore codependency in relationships a little bit. Yes, no?

PARIS JACKSON: I could see how it’d be interpreted that way.

ALEX COOPER: Okay. Yeah, I kind of interpreted it that way. Yeah, then that’s — but I guess that’s what I got out of it.

PARIS JACKSON: That’s what it’s about. That’s what it’s about. 100%. This is a song about codependency.

ALEX COOPER: You’re like codependency through and through, Alex. Have you ever experienced codependency?

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah.

ALEX COOPER: How have you—

PARIS JACKSON: — that’s what my song’s about.

ALEX COOPER: Okay, okay, so I wasn’t completely fucked up for sure.

PARIS JACKSON: For sure I have. Of course.

ALEX COOPER: Have you ever had it where you were in the situation where someone else realized that they didn’t need you in the same way that you needed them? And how did you handle that unraveling? Because codependency is hard to unravel.

PARIS JACKSON: I mean, it can be aligned in many ways with addiction. I’ve experienced it in so many different ways where I was the one that had to set up some boundaries, or cut it off. And I’ve been on the other end of it as well. And it’s tough. I mean, I would say, in a hypothetical situation, doing what I did last year of, “Let’s get right with me,” is one of the best things.

ALEX COOPER: And let’s get right with me and let’s get right with whatever — you know, not going to give it a name — but no, I agree with you, because it’s like almost when you have a codependent situation, it almost becomes this — I don’t even want to say 50/50 situation, but you kind of are giving half of yourself and then trying to make it that they’re the other, or more, right?

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah, you’re right, it could be 70/30, 80/20, whatever it is.

ALEX COOPER: And what you start to realize is you’re actually not operating 100% as yourself. And as comfortable as codependency in the moment can be, and scary as it is to detach yourself from it, the longer you prolong it, the more you’re going to get so seeped into that experience, and it’s going to be harder to remove. And so I agree with you — sometimes cold turkey and removing yourself and then pouring into yourself is kind of the only way to navigate getting out of a situation like that. It’s hard. It’s really—

PARIS JACKSON: — in a lot of just issues in general, as far as connection, relationships, and just anything consuming — the opposite is, well, how do I be in right relationship with it, whatever that thing is?

On Getting Engaged Again and Staying Single

ALEX COOPER: Could you see yourself getting engaged again?

PARIS JACKSON: I don’t know. You know, it’s a day-at-a-time kind of thing for me. I realize that if I spend so much time thinking about what the next 10, 15, 20, 30 years is going to look like, I’ll get there and I’ll look back and be like, “Damn, I didn’t enjoy where I was when I was there, and I was just thinking about where I’m going to be now.”

ALEX COOPER: So are you staying single? Are we dating? Are we in a relationship? What’s happening, Paris?

PARIS JACKSON: I’m happy.

ALEX COOPER: That’s all.

PARIS JACKSON: That’s all I’m going to say.

ALEX COOPER: That’s a good answer. You have been open about struggling with self-love. We’ve talked about it a little bit, but where are you now sitting here today with that? And what are things that you now are like, “I will not tolerate this,” whether it’s from yourself or a romantic — as far as intimacy goes, genuine connection with a person — can you expand a little bit? What does intimacy look like to you?

PARIS JACKSON: Safety, trust, and there’s a bit of spiritual connection in there too. Yeah, that’s just a non-negotiable. I don’t want to just hook up with someone that’s good and bad. I don’t. Right?

ALEX COOPER: You’re like, “We’ve had that.”

PARIS JACKSON: I just — I want actual love, actual, you know, um — and my views on intimacy have changed. My views on a lot of non-negotiables have changed. There needs to be some kind of creativity involved in the connection, and I need to laugh with someone that has all of the letters — like my diagnoses that I do, as well as my addiction, my CPTSD — and I just need to laugh. Life’s too serious.

ALEX COOPER: Are you usually the funnier one in the relationship?

PARIS JACKSON: I think it’s dependent on the person. Yeah, but in the last few years, I’ve definitely realized I don’t want to carry the weight. You don’t want to bring it all — especially because my best friend is the funniest person I know, and she’s taught me a lot of — I think I get a lot of my humor from her because I’ve known her since I was a teenager. But yeah, all my friends, my bandmates are so funny, my brothers are so funny. Everyone — it’s very important. It’s so healing, and it’s so what life is about sometimes.

ALEX COOPER: Are you someone that historically dates people you’ve been friends with, or are you meeting someone and immediately going to be romantic with them?

PARIS JACKSON: Um, I have learned I am the type of person that needs a foundation of friendship. And that’s not — I definitely had issues with boundaries when I was younger. We’re just like, “whoever,” kind of thing. I had hooked up with friends when I was younger and realized that, hey, just because this is a really great friendship and we’re in a really good place doesn’t mean we need to take it further to make it better. And I’ve just learned that that’s not for — you know, I’m learning boundaries and I’m learning that. But, yeah, for sure, as far as a partner goes, there’s got to be a best friendship.

ALEX COOPER: Yeah.

PARIS JACKSON: There’s got to be — we’ve got to enjoy just hanging out. Going out and doing nice dates and stuff, but also hang out, shoot the shit, have fun, make each other laugh. That has to be there. That’s a non-negotiable.

Musical Legacy and Expectations

ALEX COOPER: Speaking about your music, obviously, because the new album is coming out — I was thinking about it. Being the daughter of literally one of the biggest musicians in history for the rest of time, I feel like there have been such expectations placed on you that have kind of — expectations that have nothing—

PARIS JACKSON: — going to make you miserable.

ALEX COOPER: I was going to say — that have nothing to do with you as a human being. It’s all because of who your father is. It’s like somehow these things were placed on you too. How do you handle that pressure, or how do you manage it? Because you’re in the music business, right?

PARIS JACKSON: And so, like, I think comparison’s the thief of joy. And as far as what I choose to do, I’m literally just going with what feels good to me. It’s like, “Oh, I really like the snare sound in this Smashing Pumpkins song. I really like the way he enunciates this word in this Manchester Orchestra song. And I really like, you know, the guitar tone of this Bad Book song.” I’m doing what sounds good to me and feels right to me. And if other people have expectations of, “Well, you should go this route, or you should do this genre, or you should do this” — when you place expectations on other people, you’re just going to end up sour about it. And that’s not really my business what other people think of me.

And also, if you’re going to try and turn someone into something that is one of a kind, when no one else has been able to hold a light to that, you’re going to make yourself miserable doing that. But, yeah, I do think there’s some humor to be found in, like, yeah, I’m doing a grunge show, I’m doing a rock show, I’m screaming into a microphone, and someone’s like, “Why didn’t you moonwalk on stage?” And it’s like, that’s the wrong show. I’m opening up for Incubus, or I’m opening up for the Pretty Reckless. This is not that show, babe.

ALEX COOPER: This is not that show. That’s — I love that perspective.

PARIS JACKSON: You get on my loafers, you know — I’m just wearing combat boots.

ALEX COOPER: We’re not doing—

PARIS JACKSON: — not anatomically possible anyways.

ALEX COOPER: What do you think your dad would think about your music?

PARIS JACKSON: I don’t like speaking for other people, but based on what I knew about him wanting me to be happy, I think because I’m happy, he would be satisfied with that.

The New Album’s Inspiration

ALEX COOPER: Um, August 21st, the album comes out. Also, that’s my birthday, by the way. We’ve got good juju here. Okay, it’s your birthday, it’s also my birthday. So thanks for the birthday gift.

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah, I’ll send you a vinyl.

ALEX COOPER: Yeah, I’ll be listening. Can you explain what the inspiration behind this album is?

PARIS JACKSON: It’s not like — it’s cohesive in sound as far as the sonics and the production go, but it’s not cohesive as far as storytelling goes. My first record was a concept record, and it was like, if you listen in track order from start to finish, it tells a story. This is kind of, as far as what each song is about, they’re all about different things.

This album is for freshman-year old P. It is, like, freshman year, moody, love Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins and Pixies and Marcy Playground. Just very — this is for her, you know. I’m like, “What if I just made something that she would have thought was really cool?” It doesn’t have to be like, “Wow, this is really well-written music.” It’s just, “No, I just want it to sound fun, and I want her to think that it’s cool.” And the thing is, I am a folk artist at heart. I will always be a singer-songwriter folk artist. So that might be where I’m headed sonically in the future. But once I realized, “Oh, I can scream and I can project” — fuck it, let’s do a fun, loud record.

ALEX COOPER: What was the hardest song for you to write?

PARIS JACKSON: The hardest one for me to write — have to see the track list, to think, because some of these songs I wrote years ago. As far as emotions go, probably “Sirens.”

ALEX COOPER: That one’s very emotional.

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah, that was about a buddy of mine that overdosed on my drugs, and I had to handle that till the paramedics arrived. That was — that was a rough thing that happened. Yeah.

ALEX COOPER: How long ago did you write that song?

PARIS JACKSON: Um, well, it happened — I think it was 2018 when it happened, and then I think I wrote the song in 2021 or 2022, and then I recorded it with Butch Walker, and it was just left on the back burner and I never really did anything with it. And then when I started working on this new record, I’m like, “That fits the vibe of this.” I’m going to just throw that on there.

And that was, yeah, I mean, that was scary, because in a situation like that, even though I had experience with being a trained first responder, when you go into fight or flight, there’s no — it’s a gamble of how your brain’s going to react. Just because you know what to do, your brain still might tell you to freeze, and there’s nothing you can do about it. So it was definitely a lucky situation. And the paramedics had said, if you had gotten there any later, he either would be dead or brain dead. So it’s also definitely a testament to the whole, like, it takes what it takes, because I still didn’t get sober for another year and a half after that. You’d think something scary like that of, like—

ALEX COOPER: — nope. No, that’s such a good point. It’s like — it’s almost like how people talk about — completely different — but like therapy. When people are like, you literally can’t convince someone to get therapy, to get help. It has to be the person that finally something clicks in you and you’re like, “Okay, today’s the day.” Family members try to convince, understandably, and it’s like, you have to be the one.

PARIS JACKSON: Interventions suck, dude. Interventions suck. No one likes them. Everyone I talk to that’s had them, we all hate them.

ALEX COOPER: It—

PARIS JACKSON: — you know what, depending on the situation, if the person’s ready, it works. Or it will be one step further into planting that seed, so that when they are ready, they will know where to go and they will know what to do and they will know how to handle it. Didn’t work for me though.

ALEX COOPER: It’s all right, you figured it out. If you are still in touch with that friend that you wrote “Sirens” about, have you shared it with him?

PARIS JACKSON: I’ve not shared that. But I did have a really nice conversation with him probably about a year ago. We caught up, and I was able to kind of address some of the things that went south during that time when I was a mess. And I’m like, “This is where I’m at now. And these are the things that I’m kind of doing as corrective measures daily to no longer be that way.”

ALEX COOPER: Yeah, it’s amazing. What song are you most excited to perform on tour?

PARIS JACKSON: “Stitched” is really fun to do, but there’s this other song that’s not on the album, and it’s not one that I’m going to put out for a while. But I just finished recording it, and that one’s probably the most fun one to perform. I also always do a cover of “No Rain” by Blind Melon, and we do like a rock version of it, and I’m shredding my voice on it, and it’s fun, and the audience loves it, and the audience knows it — because they’re not singing my own lyrics back to me, but they’ll sing that one. So it’s a really good time.

Reinvention and What Comes Next

ALEX COOPER: Yeah. You’ve talked about how you’ve kind of reinvented yourself many times over the years. How would you describe this current phase of your life that you’re in?

PARIS JACKSON: D major. It’s like the happiest chord there is. Oh, it’s sometimes a very corny chord, but it’s — yeah, it’s the happiest chord there is, I would say.

ALEX COOPER: That’s amazing. That makes me really happy.

PARIS JACKSON: Or a G, because it’s so well-rounded and complete.

ALEX COOPER: Okay, throughout all of your hardships and all of the growth that you’ve been through, what are you most proud of yourself for today?

PARIS JACKSON: Relentlessness. Keep on trucking, man.

ALEX COOPER: Just fuck it.

PARIS JACKSON: Keep on trucking. Just keep going, you know — open-minded, willing.

Closing

ALEX COOPER: I am so happy I got to sit down with you. I had obviously so much I wanted to ask you, and I really appreciate you being so open. I know you are a very private person, and I feel like, kind of like you said, it is very indicative of where you’re at in your life that your music — you’re like, “I used to write and kind of allude,” and now it is kind of synonymous with how you’re living your life, like you’re pouring more in.

PARIS JACKSON: Like, even going from my first record, which is very much like I’m singing in my head register, and I’m very like — I want to hit the notes that other people are going to think it sounds like maybe pretty or whatever. And now I’m like, “But that’s my head register.” When I sing with my chest register, it’s going to sound a little bit more abrasive. And thank God I listen to bands like Bright Eyes and Modest Mouse, because they don’t give a fuck. And it’s like that’s what I want to emulate — just like, this is not going to sound pretty, and I’m not going to do the really nice vocal runs of a proper singer. I don’t even consider myself a singer. So I’m like, just get it out, do the thing, be full — in my fullness.

ALEX COOPER: But it’s translating also to your life. Everything you’re talking about is like, you used to be understandably like — you’re like, “I wasn’t sharing as much.” And not that you have to overshare your actual life, but just being more open with yourself — even the way that you’ve talked through this entire conversation of, “I’m now pouring into myself,” and therefore it’s kind of unlocking all these different sectors in your life that are growing even more than you could have imagined.

PARIS JACKSON: Yeah.

ALEX COOPER: Than a couple years ago. I’m so happy that I got to sit down with you and get to know you, because you’re a really interesting, fabulous person. Thank you, Paris. Thank you so much for coming on Call Her Daddy. You were a dream guest.

PARIS JACKSON: Thank you. Thank you.

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