Key Takeaways
- Paris Jackson says she didn’t meet her biological mother, Debbie Rowe, until she was 15, after a childhood where she only casually asked about her and was satisfied just knowing her name.
- Their first meeting was low-key—Rowe was simply sitting with Paris’s grandmother when Paris walked in, greeted her with “Hey, Mom,” and they spent the day hanging out and starting to bond.
- On Call Her Daddy, Paris framed their growing relationship and her broader personal life—therapy, sobriety, and ending her engagement—as part of learning to drop expectations so connections can develop organically.
Paris Jackson is opening up about the unusual way she first connected with her mother, Debbie Rowe, revealing that she did not meet her until she was 15 years old. During the August 12 episode of Call Her Daddy, the singer and actress spoke candidly about growing up without a relationship with Rowe, then slowly building one during her teenage years.
Jackson said she first started asking questions about her mother when she was around 10 or 11. The answers, at the time, were enough for her. “Just like, ‘Oh, like, what’s her name?’ And I got told her name, and I’m like, ‘All right, cool,’” Paris Jackson said. “I moved on, and we connected when I was about 15, and then really started getting closer towards the end of my teens.”
The first meeting itself was not framed as a dramatic TV-movie moment. Jackson described it as surprisingly casual. “I remember coming downstairs, and she was in the living room with my grandma,” she said. “I came in. I was just like, ‘Hey, Mom,’ and she was like, ‘Hi.’ I sat down. We talked for a second. Then we went out for the day and just hung out.”
Paris is the only daughter of Michael Jackson and Rowe. Michael and Rowe married in 1996 after meeting through his dermatologist’s office, where Rowe worked as an assistant. They welcomed Prince Jackson in 1997 and Paris in 1998 before divorcing in 2000. Rowe gave full custody of the children to Michael, and after the split, she lived largely outside the public spotlight in Palmdale, California.
That family history has long made Paris’ relationship with Rowe a point of public curiosity. But on Call Her Daddy, Paris focused less on the headlines around her parents and more on how she learned to let the relationship take shape on its own terms. “She’s a Sag[ittarius], so she’s got the fire. I’m an Aries, I got the fire… We’re very similar,” she said.
Paris also said she has learned not to put too many expectations on relationships before they have room to develop. “I think what’s really cool about my process, just in general, in all things, is learning how expectations kind of f*ck us up,” she explained. “If I walk into a relationship with expectations, [I’m] probably gonna end up being maybe disappointed or frustrated or irritated or resentment will be born or something.”
Paris added, “When I walk into something, and I don’t have expectations, it creates this really cool space for something organic to just blossom.”
The comments come during a week when Paris has been especially open about her personal life. In the same Call Her Daddy appearance, she discussed calling off her engagement to music producer Justin Long, saying it was “a choice that I needed to make to be happy.”
She also reflected on therapy, sobriety, and learning that her “non-negotiables” are allowed to stay non-negotiable.
