La Toya Jackson

• 1. Introduction

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  La Toya Jackson was born on the 29th of May 1956 at St Mary's Mercy Hospital in Gary, Indiana, on her sister Rebbie's sixth birthday. She was the fifth of ten children born to Joe and Katherine Jackson, and the middle daughter, sitting between Rebbie and Janet. Her brothers performed together as The Jacksons, so her last name arrived already famous. That raises a hard question for anyone who wants an identity of their own. How does a person step out of a family's shadow, and what does it cost? Her answer ran through recording studios, a life she says she was forced into, a hard-won escape, and a second act that nobody could have predicted from her first.

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• 2. Faith and Spotlight

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  In 1966, Katherine Jackson became a Jehovah's Witness, and her children followed her into the faith. La Toya spent part of her time preaching door-to-door beside her mother. She later recalled it this way: "Every morning, Michael and I witnessed, knocking on doors around Los Angeles, spreading the word of Jehovah."

  By 1974, at seventeen, she had joined her brothers in the spotlight with a tap dancing routine. Her father arranged for the family to perform in Las Vegas and other cities. Yet La Toya tended to be shy as a child, and show business was not her own plan.

  She attended the California Prep school in Encino, Los Angeles, and hoped to become an attorney specializing in business law. After a short time at college, her father insisted that she follow the rest of the family into entertainment.

  In 1976 and 1977, she appeared in all twelve episodes of The Jacksons, a CBS variety program. Her sisters Rebbie and Janet joined her, along with brothers Jackie, Tito, Marlon, Michael, and Randy. Jermaine did not take part, because he had stayed at Motown when his brothers moved to Epic Records. The siblings sang, danced, and performed comic skits.

  During the filming of The Wiz in 1977, La Toya travelled to New York with Michael, who had been cast as the Scarecrow. They shared an apartment there. It was the first time either of them had lived away from home as adults. Back in California the two stayed close, and Michael was 29 and La Toya 31 when they finally left the family's Encino house.

  Her romantic life from this period drew attention too. She dated Chico, the brother of Diana Ross, and a young David Gest. She also dated Bobby DeBarge, and she was the inspiration for "I Call Your Name," a 1979 hit for the group Switch.

  Joe Jackson also guided Rebbie, La Toya, and Janet in forming a musical group of their own. It was short-lived. The trio never performed live and soon split over creative differences about the act's direction, so nothing from them was ever released. La Toya turned instead to her first solo album.

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• 3. Going Solo

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  In 1980, La Toya Jackson released a self-titled debut album, and she fought over how her name appeared on it. She said: "I begged just to have it 'La Toya'. But my father said, 'It's your last name. You got to use it.' But I wanted to see what I could do as an individual."

  The first single, "If You Feel the Funk," became a modest hit and reached the Top 40 of the US R&B chart. The second, "Night Time Lover," was produced by her younger brother Michael. He sang backing vocals and co-wrote the song with her.

  She returned the favor. She supplied the opening scream on the 1980 Jacksons hit "This Place Hotel," and she sang backing vocals on Michael's 1983 solo hit "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)." Her album peaked at number 116 on the US Billboard 200, number 26 on the Billboard R&B albums chart, and number 178 on the UK Albums Chart. It remains her highest-placing album.

  A follow-up, My Special Love, arrived in 1981. It produced the singles "Stay the Night" and "I Don't Want You to Go."

  In 1984 came Heart Don't Lie. Its title track became her biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit, peaking at number 56. The album also yielded "Bet'cha Gonna Need My Lovin'," "Hot Potato," and a cover of Prince's "Private Joy."

  A song she wrote for that album took a detour. She and Amir Bayyan co-wrote "Reggae Night," but it did not make the final track list. Jimmy Cliff recorded it instead, and his version was a hit nominated for a Grammy. Cliff then commissioned two more songs from her, "Brown Eyes" and "American Sweet."

  Also in 1984, she licensed her name to a fashion line called "David Laurenz for La Toya." Her signature leather headbands featured in the collection. She appeared in television and print advertisements for Nikon cameras. The following year she became spokesmodel for the cosmetics firm Mahogany Image and launched a fragrance, La Toya.

  In 1985, she took part in "We Are the World," the single raising money for famine relief in Ethiopia. She also appeared in the anti-drug music video "Stop the Madness." Her single "Baby Sister" won one of five Outstanding Song Awards at the sixteenth annual World Popular Song Festival in Japan.

  "Baby Sister" appeared on the 1986 album Imagination. The record came out just before her label, Private-I, went bankrupt, which left it poorly promoted. She then recorded two duets, "Oops, Oh No!" with Cerrone and "Yes, I'm Ready" with the artist Jed. In 1987 she was a special guest at Minako Honda's DISPA (Disco Party) concert, joining in on "Funkytown."

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• 4. Jack Gordon

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  In 1987, her father Joseph hired Jack Gordon to co-manage La Toya, and Gordon later took over her management entirely. Under his direction, her public image became increasingly sexualized. Her mother Katherine wrote about seeing her dance suggestively for the first time in 1988, in her autobiography My Family, The Jacksons. Katherine wrote that La Toya "she'd been so conservative that she'd once dropped a friend who had begun wearing low-cut tops and skirts with slits in them."

  Katherine believed Gordon was pulling La Toya away from her family so he could "become the dominating influence in her life." Around this time the Jehovah's Witnesses disfellowshipped La Toya. Defying her father, she made a stormy exit from the family's Encino compound and moved to New York City.

  In late 1988, she released the album La Toya. It included the singles "You're Gonna Get Rocked!" and "(Ain't Nobody Loves You) Like I Do." Full Force produced four tracks and Stock Aitken Waterman produced three. One song, "Just Say No," was written for the Reagan administration's anti-drug campaign.

  In March 1989, she posed topless for Playboy magazine. She saw the pictorial as a declaration of independence from her conservative upbringing, a way to show her parents that she controlled her own life. That year she also began recording her sixth album, Bad Girl. She staged a live pay-per-view concert, A Sizzling Spectacular!, at Bally's theatre in Reno, with Edgar Winter as special guest.

  On the 5th of September 1989, after that Nevada concert, she and Gordon were married. Jackson later said she had been forcibly married and that it was unplanned and against her wishes. Gordon said he arranged it to protect her from a kidnapping by her family. She told Ebony magazine the marriage was "strictly in name only. It has never been consummated."

  Six months in, while in Rome, Italy, she asked Gordon for an annulment. According to her account, he answered by repeatedly bashing her head against the corner of a hotel room table, saying he would never let her go. Paparazzi photographed her with black eyes, which Gordon blamed on an intruder.

  From then on she lost all contact with her family. She wrote an autobiography, La Toya: Growing Up in the Jackson Family, which accused her father of physical abuse. To promote it, she posed for Playboy again in November 1991. She later said she refused at first, and that Gordon beat her into submission.

  According to Jackson, Gordon controlled her for roughly the next decade through threats, lies, and routine domestic violence. She described the first time he hit her this way: "I just recalled my ear ringing, just ringing so hard." He confiscated her passport and moved her bank accounts into his own name. He hired bodyguards to watch her constantly, and he banned her from seeing or speaking to her family, monitoring every phone call.

  Her family saw it from the outside. In his book The Jacksons, Joseph said he believed Gordon had brainwashed La Toya and made her fear her own relatives. Katherine believed the same, while Gordon claimed that Katherine had tried to kill her daughter. At the time, her sister Janet said Gordon kept La Toya away from the family and had brainwashed her so much that she kept herself away from them.

  Her music continued. In 1990, she entered the Sanremo Music Festival with "You and Me," an English-language version of "Verso l'ignoto" by siblings Marcella and Gianni Bella. It did not win Best Song, but it entered Italy's hit parade and peaked at number twenty-eight. She then signed with the German label BCM Records and released "Why Don't You Want My Love?" BCM went bankrupt and the album plans were scrapped, so she signed with Dino Records. That label released No Relations in 1991, an album with strong house and funk influences, which featured "Sexbox," a top twenty-five hit in the Netherlands.

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• 5. Paris and Escape

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  In 1992, La Toya Jackson signed with the Moulin Rouge in Paris to star in her own revue, Formidable. She was to perform two shows a night, six nights a week. She reportedly earned $5 million, making her the highest-paid performer in the cabaret's history. Most nights sold out. Even so, she left about halfway through her year-long contract, owing the nightclub $550,000 in damages.

  In October 1992, she was taping an Exotic Club Tour in Minneapolis when she learned that Janet was in town. Janet was recording her fifth studio album with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. La Toya approached her sister to ask for help escaping Gordon. Instead, Janet struck her, accusing her elder sister of recording their conversation.

  In 1993, in their New York home, Gordon beat her repeatedly with a heavy brass dining room chair. She was left with black eyes, a swollen lip, and a chin "the size of a clenched fist." She needed 12 stitches inside her mouth and had bruises on her face, arms, legs, and back. She lost consciousness, and she recalled that he phoned friends and said, "She's dead. I killed her." Gordon was arrested and then released, claiming he had acted in self-defense.

  In December 1993, Gordon hastily arranged a press conference in Tel Aviv. There he had her read a statement saying she believed the sex abuse allegation against her younger brother Michael might be true. It reversed her earlier defense of him. Gordon claimed she had proof that she would disclose for $500,000, and a bidding war began between US and UK tabloids. It fell through once they realized her revelations were not what had been promised. La Toya says Gordon threatened to have Michael and Janet killed if she did not obey.

  Also in 1993, Jackson claimed that her father had sexually abused her and her sister as children, and that her mother Katherine had enabled it. Rebbie called the police on their father. Katherine told the police that nothing had happened.

  Her career sagged under Gordon's bookings. He took jobs described as disreputable, such as spokesperson for the Psychic Friends Network. By the mid-1990s her finances were in disarray, and she filed for bankruptcy to fend off the Moulin Rouge's damages claim. She still worked. In 1993 she gave a concert at Poland's Sopot International Song Festival and released a step aerobics video, Step-Up Workout. In the first quarter of 1994, Playboy Celebrity Centerfold: La Toya Jackson came out and sold roughly 50,000 copies. She later said Gordon made her film it under duress. Later in the decade she released From Nashville to You, a country album, and Stop in the Name of Love, a collection of Motown hits.

  The end came when she learned that Gordon planned to feature her in a pornographic film. She phoned her brother Randy, who flew to New York and helped her escape while Gordon was out. Days later, she filed for divorce in Las Vegas. She also sued Gordon in civil court for years of abuse under the Violence Against Women Act. She changed her name from La Toya Jackson-Gordon back to La Toya Jackson, dropping her middle name Yvonne.

  She ended her estrangement from the whole family and returned home to Hayvenhurst. About her parents she said: "I've come to realize that as we get older, we grow and learn a lot more. And I think that my father and my mother, they raised children the best way they know how." According to La Toya, Michael knew she had been forced to attack him in the press and did not blame her. Her last single of the 1990s was "Don't Break My Heart."

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• 6. Voice and Idols

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  Her range reaches E6 on "Bet'cha Gonna Need My Lovin'," which means La Toya Jackson has a three-octave vocal range. A review in The Evening Independent called hers an "attractive, pleasant voice that is matured and controlled." Andrew Hamilton of AllMusic heard something lighter, describing it as a wispy "sexy whisper."

  Like her siblings Michael and Janet, she is mainly a pop, R&B, and dance performer. She has also tried other styles. Her song "No More Drama" shows a rock side, her signature song "Heart Don't Lie" has a reggae feel, and she has recorded country music as well.

  James Brown is the artist she names as a major influence, as many Jacksons do, with Michael most notably. When she headlined the Moulin Rouge, she paid tribute to the earlier performer La Goulue and named Josephine Baker as an influence. The academic Bennetta Jules-Rosette argued that careful planning let her model a successful part of her career abroad on a Baker-like image. The French magazine L'Express went further and hailed her as "the new Josephine Baker."

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• 7. Quiet Return

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  After leaving Gordon, Jackson shut herself inside her home and lived alone for the first time. Weary from years of public scorn, she was afraid to perform and struggled to rebuild her confidence. Eventually she began occasional shows in Europe and South America to earn money toward the huge debts Gordon had run up in her name. After the September 11 attacks she felt moved to compose "Free the World," which she first sang for friends to a warm reception.

  On the 9th of March 2003, she reappeared on Larry King Live. CNN's phone lines stayed busy for hours, and it was King's highest-rated show in three years. She announced her first musical project in six years, Startin' Over.

  Its lead single, "Just Wanna Dance," came out in 2004 through Ja-Tail Records, independently. She released it under her nickname "Toy" so that DJs would not carry any prejudice against the name La Toya Jackson. The song reached number 13 on the US Billboard Hot Dance chart. "Free the World" followed in 2005. That February, Ja-Tail secured a distribution deal with Bungalo Records, but the project was delayed for several years.

  Jack Gordon died in 2005, which left Jackson free to speak more openly about the control he had exerted. She sent a security expert to confirm with his own eyes that Gordon had not faked his death a second time. That same year she appeared on ABC News to recant her previous allegations and to defend Michael against new charges of child abuse.

  On the 10th of January 2007, the reality show Armed & Famous premiered on CBS with Jackson and other celebrities. It documented her basic training and service as a reserve police officer with the Muncie Police Department. CBS eventually pulled it because it could not compete with American Idol, and VH1 aired the remaining episodes. On the 29th of January 2007, she released a promotional single, "I Don't Play That."

  In January 2009, she was paid £103,000 to appear on the British show Celebrity Big Brother 6, where she placed 7th. On the 28th of July 2009, she released "Home," with all proceeds going to AIDS Project Los Angeles. In 2010, she launched a hand cream, Dream Cream, with the German cosmetics firm Alessandro International.

  On the 21st of June 2011, Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, released her second memoir, Starting Over. After numerous delays, her intended eleventh studio album came out the same day as an EP of the same name instead. It remains her most recent release.

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• 8. Reality Stardom

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  In 2011, Jackson appeared on NBC's Celebrity Apprentice, and she also served as a guest judge on RuPaul's Drag Race and on the 17th season of America's Next Top Model. She was becoming a fixture of reality television.

  In 2013, she rejoined the cast for The All-Star Celebrity Apprentice and lasted until the 3rd episode. During the series she accused fellow contestant Omarosa Manigault of causing the death of her fiance, Michael Clarke Duncan. Manigault threatened a lawsuit in response.

  Also in 2013, Jackson started her own series, Life With La Toya, on the Oprah Winfrey Network. It ran for two seasons. Her business partner Jeffre Phillips proposed to her publicly in an episode, with the blessing of her father. Reports of a wedding on the 6th of December 2013 followed, and the pair later said they had not married. By February 2015, they had annulled their engagement.

  In September 2013, she made her stage debut in a week-long engagement in the off-Broadway musical Newsical. That year, she and Phillips also served as executive producers of the documentary Dancing in Jaffa, which followed 150 young Jewish and Palestinian Israelis as they danced together and set aside cultural differences.

  In 2016, she teamed up with the Iranian-Armenian pop star Andy on the single "Tehran," sung in Farsi. In 2018, she joined a celebrity edition of Food Network's Worst Cooks in America, coached by chef Tyler Florence. She reached the final and beat Ian Ziering, and $25,000 went to the charity Race to Erase MS in her name.

  The Masked Singer franchise then took her around the world. In 2019, she was revealed as "Alien" on the American version. In 2021, she competed as the Menina, meaning girl, in the Spanish edition, Mask Singer: Adivina Quien Canta. In 2023, she returned as Burger Gal in the fifth season of the Australian edition.

  In 2026, she came back to the Drag Race franchise as a guest judge on the eleventh season of All Stars, with a runway theme inspired by her classic looks. That year she also has a credit as executive producer on the film Michael.

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