Paris Jackson credits music for helping her through “hard times” amid her addiction struggles.
Paris Jackson has been sober for six years
The 28-year-old star has been sober for six years and she admitted channeling her feelings in her work has always been hugely helpful.
Speaking in a Vogue Beauty Secrets vlog, she said: “That was kind of the only thing that got me through the hard times before I got sober, was music.
“When I got sober, it helped me be like, ‘Oh wow, music really is everything. It really is like the air I breathe.’ “
Paris – who is the daughter of the late Michael Jackson and his second wife Debbie Rowe – was reluctant to go into music, even though she felt it was her “primary purpose” in life.
She said: “I was pretty scared to start doing music because I’ve kind of been playing guitar since I was 13 or 14. And I just suppressed it as a hobby.
“In my like early 20s, I was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore. It’s what makes me happy, and I just have to do that. Especially because this was before I figured out all the other things that made me happy.”
Rock climbing, her friends, and working on her photography also helped Paris through “some rough patches” in her life.
Paris recently reflected on how she was a “very vindictive person” when she used to drink.
Recalling the way she thought about herself, she told Jack Osbourne on the Trying Not To Die podcast: “‘Oh, I may be a liar, a cheater, a piece of s***, a thief, whatever, but I do have a moral compass, like, I was raised right in that way’.
“What happens when I drink is that goes away. That goes right out the window and I become a very vindictive person.”
Paris noted she was “raised to be kind”, but her drug and alcohol addiction made behaving a certain way more difficult.
She said: “It’s really ugly behaviour in a moral way, because I was raised to be kind — not nice, I could give a s*** about being nice — but kind.
“Being kind and looking people in the eye and asking the waiter their name so you can write it down on the receipt later, just little things of, just like, how do you treat people?”
It’s been over a decade after Paris, then 17, first sought treatment for her struggles with addiction.
It was then that she can remember noticing “a lot of tell-tale signs” from a very young age.
She recalled: “I struggled with self-harm for a really long time before I ever had my first drink or drug.
“I had weird relationships with overeating and food as a young kid…
“There was this overall reachy, graspy energy that I only ever see in other addicts. Reaching for something outside of yourself.”
