Paris Jackson Has Found Her Own Voice

Paris Jackson has a complicated relationship with fame. “I don’t think there’s anything about celebrity that’s normal,” she tells me over the phone from Los Angeles the day before her FASHION cover shoot. “I don’t think we’re meant to be infatuated with human beings we’ve never met.” Still, she’s arguably more intimately familiar with the concept than anyone.

There are celebrity children—those born into the limelight by nature of their A-list lineage—and then there’s Paris Jackson. Daughter of the most famous man in music, she exists on the extreme end of the automatic-stardom spectrum. She has been living in front of flashing cameras since before she could walk, thrust into parasocial dynamics since she was born. She was 11 years old when she spoke in front of millions, addressing the world at her father’s live-streamed memorial service in 2009. It’s a brave thing for any grieving daughter to do, let alone one in middle school. The heart-wrenching 30-second speech went viral. Time called it the most indelible moment of the ceremony, and Jackson was solidified as a subject of public interest, whether she liked it or not.

Throughout her life, she has been chased by paparazzi, harassed by strangers and made the target of endless social-media bullying. “I felt like everyone else got a blueprint to life—a rule book—and I didn’t,” she says. In January 2025, Jackson celebrated five years of recovery from an alcohol and heroin addiction. At 27, she’s been through more than most people experience in a lifetime. All of this, it seems, has armed her with thick skin.

“The thing is, I’ve been ripped apart online since I was 13,” she tells me. As a result, she’s not exactly pandering for approval—especially when it comes to her music. “As far as my art goes, I’m just going to make what I want to make, and if I get bad responses, that’s not new. Typically, people are afraid of the unknown. Public scrutiny is not unknown territory for me; it’s very familiar.”

She makes folk songs—her voice soft and soulful, her melodies plucky and intimate and her lyrics exploring heartbreak, sadness and addiction. An album is on the way (she hopes to release it in 2026), and despite her strong reservations about public attention, she has no interest in censoring her confessional style. “I want to make something that I’m going to be happy with,” she says. “So if someone has an issue with my vulnerability, that’s not really my problem.”

Jackson is beautiful in the kind of otherworldly way that high-fashion models are. She’s angular and symmetrical: Her cheekbones are high, her blond hair cascades in beach-y waves and her eyes—a piercing greenish blue—are the focal point of her face. Though she was born and raised in L.A., her vibe is not one of done-up Hollywood glamour but, rather, Laurel Canyon boho. She has more tattoos than she can count; she stacks bracelets and crystal necklaces with abandon; and if she has something to say, she often shares it through blunt stream-of-consciousness videos on Instagram.

In conversation, Jackson doesn’t mince words or sugar-coat statements. When she’s finished with an answer, she’ll sit in silence, never filling a void with fluff. She loves her animals—three dogs and one cat—and describes her relationship with them as a soul connection. She’s dry-humoured, well-read (her favourite novel is Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael) and decisive, a trait born in part from her upbringing. When she was a kid, her dad had her read books to earn toys, and she once flew through the entire Chronicles of Narnia series in a week. She’s also hard-working. At the time of our interview, she has just returned home from the Venice Film Festival and is gearing up for work trips to Spain and New York City. Like a true Angeleno, she’s calling from her car, en route from an appointment that ran late to the gym. And though she’s not superficially nice, I come away from our time together knowing that she’s kind.

It goes without saying that music has always been a big part of Jackson’s life. When she was growing up, her most impactful discoveries were bands like Radiohead, The Smashing Pumpkins and Mötley Crüe. They got her through the hard high-school years, when she felt alone and lost. She always sensed a pull toward the art and eventually came to the realization—sometime before she got sober—that she herself needed to make music. “I was kind of in a dark place—in an unhealthy, drug-fuelled relationship,” she reflects on her revelation. “But we did create a lot of music.”

She released her debut album, Wilted—a project she wrote during her first year of sobriety—in 2020. “I felt like I was a baby,” she explains of the creative process. “That’s how you feel when you’re newly sober. You’ve been numbing for so long, and suddenly it’s time to, like, raw dog life.” Her upcoming album, co-written with ’90s hit maker Linda Perry (“What’s Up?” “Fill Me Up”), is a “completely different sound” but deals with the same subdued subject matter.

Because she comes from a family that left an unforgettable mark on pop, comparisons are inevitable. But she says that finding her own voice was the easy part. “The internal journey—figuring out what I want to sound like and creating it in the studio—has been a beautiful experience. The thing that makes it difficult is other people who aren’t actually involved,” she says, expressing annoyance at unsolicited opinions from commenters online.

Given her weariness with stardom, it’s no surprise that Jackson doesn’t have many famous friends. “The people I keep very close are normal human beings: therapists, bartenders, chefs,” she says. Even her fellow musician pals are local artists who perform at L.A. watering holes. “I’m not hanging out with Ed Sheeran, you know? I’m sure he’s a great guy though.”

She may work in the entertainment industry, but Jackson is clear she’s not chasing prestigious acclaim. “I’ve seen a lot of people choose success over being a good person, and I don’t recommend that because you’re not going to take it with you when you go,” she says. “What are you going to do? Get buried with your Oscar in your casket? Like, cool.”

Instead, she’s guided by issues she believes in—as is the case with her approach to fashion. “I have always felt very uncomfortable in my own skin, and I’ve always had very unmanageable thoughts and feelings,” she says. As a teen, she used clothes to work through that, wearing edgy Mötley Crüe T-shirts and combat boots with her school uniform. “I was like, ‘If I feel so different, I might as well actually dress like it.’” She entered the industry professionally at 19, but the goal wasn’t to become a style icon. “I wanted to grow my platform so that I could use it for activism,” she explains. (She now has more than five million followers on Instagram.)

In 2017, Jackson was named the face of Calvin Klein. Over the years, she has starred in luxury campaigns, attended Met Galas and sat front row at international runways. Her proudest achievements, though, have been moments of raising public awareness. At the 2017 VMAs, she spoke out against white supremacy. When presenting at the 2018 Daily Front Row Fashion Media Awards, she called for the teleprompter to be paused to urge viewers to vote. These days, she’s focused on environmental issues, working with sustainable designer Stella McCartney and talking about animal rights. “Humans are animals,” she says. “Some people got the idea that humans are meant to rule over all the other animals, but I don’t ascribe to that.”

On top of all this, she has also been outspoken about body acceptance. But that one, she explains, is less of a social statement and more of a no-brainer. “I would like to have a good relationship with my body because it’s my temple,” she says plainly. “It feels kind of f*cked up to not do that.” Like a true model, she wears clothes undeniably well—embodying an ethereal goddess in Iris van Herpen pleats just as easily as she slips into gothic cosplay in archival Trussardi. To her, a good outfit is grounding: It makes her feel more like herself.

Acting, on the other hand, can complicate things a bit. Even though she’s been in several films—like 2025’s action thriller One Spoon of Chocolate and 2021’s racy nun comedy Habit—Jackson says she has a “love-hate” relationship with the craft, emphasizing that she doesn’t really consider herself an actor at all. She has to tap into real, often painful memories to emote onscreen, blurring the boundaries between reality and playing pretend. “That’s why I don’t do it often,” she says. “And I go to a lot of therapy.” Why do it at all, then? “You meet cool people,” she replies, adding that an indie movie she made a few years ago, Open Wounds, will likely be premiering soon. “On the last few projects I’ve done, I’ve laughed a lot on-set and connected with others.”

As far as building a legacy goes, Jackson isn’t concerned with that. “I would like to be remembered by my loved ones as a person who was of service,” she says. “I have a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to public legacies, and I—she pauses—don’t really care.”

“I would like to be remembered by my loved ones as a person who was of service.”

Valuing connection over praise is perhaps what separates Jackson most from the celebrity standard. In everything she does, she appears to be searching for small moments of humanity instead of grandiose applause. As her individual star continues to rise—with an album on the way, a movie coming out and a tour with the band Queens of the Stone Age lined up—it’s a balance she’ll have to keep fine-tuning.

For now, though, she has arrived at her destination. She pauses our conversation briefly to pay for parking, and her tone takes on a warm, familiar friendliness I hadn’t yet heard. “Hi, Manny,” she says to the attendant. “Do you need your receipt?” a voice on the other side asks. “No, I’m good. Thanks, Manny.” She comes back on the phone, chuckling slightly. “I see him three times a week.”

Photography, Tyler Patrick Kenny. Styling, Ashley Galang. Creative direction, George Antonopoulos. Hair, Miles Jeffries for The Wall Group/Paul Mitchell. Makeup, Paul Blanch for The Wall Group/Tom Ford. Executive producer, Louie Diaz. Retoucher, Jordan Hartley. Set designers, Samuel Gostnell and Krystall Schott. Production assistants, Daeun Bu and Jay Sivayavirojna. Fashion assistant, Berlin Ventura. Fashion intern, Rosario Ochoa.