Joe Jackson, the father of Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson, has died. He was 89.
Family sources told TMZ that Jackson died on Wednesday at 3:30 a.m. in Los Angeles.
Jackson, considered the patriarch of the Jackson musical family, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, reported People magazine.
“He’s very, very frail, he doesn’t have long. The family needs to be by his bedside—that’s our only intention in his final days,” his son, Jermaine, told the Daily Mail.
Days later, he wrote a tweet about likely health problems. “I have seen more sunsets than I have left to see,” he said. “The sun rises when the time comes and whether you like it or not the sun sets when the time comes.” His granddaughter, Paris Jackson, later alleged that he never sent that tweet and never used that Twitter account.
Jackson is credited with engineering the careers of Michael and Janet Jackson as solo artists as well as the Jackson 5.
Jermaine Jackson, his son, told media outlets last week that his family was having trouble visiting or getting information.
“No one knew what was going on—we shouldn’t have to beg, plead and argue to see our own father, especially at a time like this,” he said, according to the New York Post. “We have been hurting. We were not being told where he was and couldn’t get the full picture. Even from the doctor. My mother was worried sick.”
Over the past several years, he’s suffered from a series of health problems, including strokes in 2013. He was hospitalized for a stroke and had three heart attacks later in 2015, the Post noted. Joe wrote in 2014, “When I suffered four strokes last year and was in the hospital recovering, only two people in my family traveled all the way to see me. My granddaughter Brandi [Jackie Jackson’s daughter] and my baby girl, Janet.”
Janet spoke warmly of her father on June 22. “My mother nourished me with the most extravagant love imaginable, my father, my incredible father, drove me to be the best that I can. My siblings set an incredibly high standard for artistic excellence,” she said, according to the Post.
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