La Toya: Growing Up in the Jackson Family

by La Toya Jackson

Michael Jackson's older sister reveals her memories of life in the Jackson household, recounting a tale of violence, drug abuse, exploitation, and infidelity and discussing her brother's transformation into a megastar. Reprint.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, Memoir

352 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 1990

Reviews

[Susie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I call BS on pretty much everything in here. Perhaps the most disingenuous autobio I've ever read (which is saying a lot because HELLO I'm in a "trashy celebrity autobiography book club")

Everytime La Toya asserted she never used the Jackson name to achieve fame/get anything, a kitten gets barfed on.

By me.

- - - - - - -

Trashy celebrity autobiography book club strikes again with yet another embarrassing book now on my bookshelf. The cover to this is pretty awful, so I made a few other, better options:

https://img.skitch.com/20110606-pdyne...
https://img.skitch.com/20110606-pqcpf...
https://img.skitch.com/20110606-q7ebp...
https://img.skitch.com/20110606-krrp1...
https://img.skitch.com/20110606-k4xt3...

[Kimberly Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know a great deal of people criticized LaToya for speaking out about her famous family, but I gave her a great deal of credit. It couldn't have been easy to talk about the intricate details surrounding her brothers and her parents. And, unlike many people who talked so badly about her for writing this, I was the exact opposite. It's mighty funny with the critics who said she was lying, including several members of her family, her parents came out with their own version of events, in a made for TV Movie of the week, and many facts in their movie, mirrored what LaToya stated in her book. So, my question is, who was the liar? I've always believed LaToya.

This was an outstanding read. I couldn't put it down. This book is put in the "One Day Read" category for me!

[Brooklyn Darkchild · Rating 3 out of 5]

So much time has passed since La Toya came out with this book that the revelations (now being rehashed in the wake of MJ's death) are no longer shocking. They are simply De Facto Jackson Lore. Although Ms Jackson neither shirks nor glosses over the trauma she and her siblings allegedly endured at Papa Joe's hands, most of this memoir features light hearted glimpses into their homelife.

Despite, or maybe because of, all they went through, the Jackson's seemed to have a genuinely tight loving bond, at least when they were young. Only after Michael's phenomenal success with Thriller did petty jealousy invade some family members. And as long as La Toya (who considered herself her mother's "best friend") stayed home, that bond remained in tact. But when La Toya decided she couldn't take another second of Papa Joe's abuse and consequently moved out of Havenhurst, the Poop suddenly hit the Fan.

I can only marvel at the strength and determination Ms Jackson had to muster up in order to rip the drawers off of the Jackson family's squeaky clean image and hold up its Personal Ugliness for all to see. Abuse is never cute; and Ms Jackson has been both vilified and ridiculed ever since this book came out. At Michael's funeral La Toya's hat was pulled down so far on her face that someone must have told her she could only attend if no one recognized her. Whether you agree with her decision to Come Clean or not, there's no denying that the price Ms Jackson ultimately paid has been Quite High.

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

As someone who's read autobiographies by Tammy Faye Bakker, Richard Simmons, Janice Dickenson, Tina Turner, Ronnie Spector, and many more, it is really saying something that I found this one painful to read. The truth is that La Toya Jackson just isn't very interesting. She was born into an interesting family, but her own life and career have been pretty average. The book advertises itself as "the book her family doesn't want you to read," and perhaps that was more apt in 1992 when it was published, but there was nothing in there that shocked me in the least. La Toya spends most of the time glorifying Michael and complaining about her father's abuse without going into any details at all. I had to force my way through this one.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exploitative trash.
La Toya definitely doesn’t play with a full deck.
I’m actually dumber for having entertained this book.
I finished it in 48 hours.
Five stars.

[NON · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating: 3.5

I know that many people stay(ed) away from this book fearing that it is filled with lies but that is not entirely true. Although, La Toya claimed after her divorce from her abusive husband, Jack Gordon, that she didn't approve of this (auto)biography. I do think that she wrote this book herself but Jack Gordon edited some of the stories to push his agenda of demonizing Joseph and Katherine Jackson.*

Jack Gordon brainwashed her through and through and turned her against her family–she was an easy target because she was battered child. After Gordon made sure that he had her, he started to move her like a puppet. At first she went along with him until it started to get too far. When she started to refuse, he started the physical abuse and the rest is history.

Back to the book, what she intended from writing this is to reveal the truth–her truth. Her truth about the Jackson's family. She opened the gates that were carefully closed (until 1991) and detailed the Jacksons' struggles. For the most part, she seemed to be genuinely honest, aside from exaggerations here and there–that were added/edited by Gordon Jack.

Most of her stories are absorbing; some of them are sad, others are humorous, pleasurable and intriguing. She vividly described the relationship with her parents and siblings, her childhood, the Jackson 5 phenomena, Michael Jackson's magnificent solo musical career, her own musical career, her search for independence, and finally her 'faux' marriage to her then manager Jack Gordon–she revealed in the book the main reason for marrying him.

Her most beautiful stories are the ones with/about Michael Jackson and they are plentiful in the book. Note that all of her false revelations about Michael came two years after this book was released. This book contains nothing disrespectful about Michael, it is actually filled with lovable stories about him as a brother/son, as an artist, and as a human being.

I suggest you read this book with an open mind and ignore the exaggerations, and to read the follow up that she wrote “Starting Over” to get the full picture about her abusive marriage and divorce.

Overall, it's straightforward, enjoyable and intriguing.

*Ms. Maldanado stated in her own memoir, “Jackson Family Values: Memories of Madness,” that Jack Gordon did approach the Jackson family with a deal to hand him $5 million in an extortion attempt to not release this book which they flatly refused.

[Lilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

i got so sucked into this it was embarrassing. even a kid in a cafe was giving me a weird look, which got me all defensive. shut up, kid, at least i can READ!

nothing like a good tell-all from the black sheep of a famous family. juicy weekend reading, celebrity trash book club wins again!

[Licha]

Read this sooooo long ago. All I remember was that it seemed glossed over and perhaps salacious. No rating.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blimey ! what an amazing autoboigraphy certainly had me thinking on if i had of read this when released back 30-35 years ago LaToya Jackson: The Shocking and Controversial Expose of Life in the Jackson Family, i would of taken probably a different view then i have when just finished reading it

certainly realize that the abuse is church riggled like a cult of somesort of 80/90's ignorance has growing up under jehovas witness in a jackson family covered up by their music career that it re-designed via the goverment the furure child laws that changed around 1997/2002 on abuse and child neglect
the reader has to keep in mind that latoya is in her book on about the 60'70'80' were the laws where children and what a parent concidered to be punishment (capital punishment) on a child was very much different then after 2002/2004 (probably the same punishment as my own 50's born parents) !

certainly a book that makes the reader look back and think .....
almost to the point of questioning what did actually happen after michael jackson announced his come back tours (2009) and if it was a fanbase of jehova winess that in 2009 random sole in their droves suddenly had the world come online adding the jackson family to a religion that isnt theirs!

add this book on latoya to the 2025 diddy courtcase and suddenly look back and realize the truth of the music industry and the cult of religion was always written in this autobiography !

onto
latoya jacksons -starting over autobiography

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am giving this book 3 stars for the following reasons:
1 star - for the good variety and detailed captions of the 2 sets of photos provided

1 star - for the amount of information that La Toya disclosed about her family, namely Michael and Joseph

1 star - for the fact that she went ahead and wrote this book anyway, despite the front cover quote "...the one my family doesn't want you to read." You go girl! This is definitely the story that is not finished. It demands a follow-up book.

I still felt like La Toya was holding back on how she really feels. Reading this, you can totally hear La Toya's high-pitched soft voice in the text. I felt like she glossed over her own feelings to save face and save family. You definitely get a glimpse of what she went through as a child, her close relationship with Michael and Mother, and how she broke away from the family. I learned more about her and Michael's Jehovah Witness faith and what a pig Joseph was and is to their family. His actions described by her paint a deplorable picture of him. I don't have any respect for him from what was written. I am surprised how much Mother puts up with and how much she seemed to have changed. Being in the showbiz life has its upsides but definitely has its share of downsides. Overall, it's interesting to read about their version of their lives.

[Jean Jessup · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not an avid Jackson fan. I read this book because Kathy O'Brien referenced this book in her book, ACCESS DENIED. So I was watching very carefully for the MK Ultra stuff. Nothing was explicitly revealed, but her dad's behavior was definitely MK Ultra and he tried to MK Ultra his kids. La Toya definitely had some repressed memories. And there is a very interesting comment at the end about her mother. I bet there was much more to her story than what was revealed in the book. Stories about Hollywood and the music industry tell horrific tales of systemic MK Ultra programming. And now that I think of it, Michael's behavior as a little kid was pretty inappropriate in public sometimes. I wonder where that came from.

This could be a good book for those who are trying to wake up from being brought up in a dysfunctional family. It reminded me of ways I was in denial growing up.

I had read the book THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES by Brice Taylor and found out from Kathy O'Brien's book that it was actually fiction and Brice claimed it as her own experience. But in that book it told horrific stories of MK Ultra abuse to the Jackson 5 right before they went on stage each time. So maybe that wasn't true? La Toya's book never indicated anything like that. It makes more sense that THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES is fiction, because I couldn't believe that anyone would be able to survive what the person went through in that book.

In any case, LA TOYA was a quick read and I learned some stuff. A sugar-coated way of telling the story of a terrible dysfunctional upbringing.

[Eamonn · Rating 2 out of 5]

My only memory of La Toya Jackson is when she appeared on the Jonathon Ross Show in the early 90s AFAIR. Ross interviewed her and basically took the p*ss but she was unruffled and came across like someone from another planet.
This book is a celebrity memoire full of ridiculous verbatim conversations that can't possibly be accurate and a childish and naive view of relationships. So it reads exactly like the work of a battered child with arrested development. It tells her story up to 1991 and ends with her finally having escaped the clutches of her overbearing, and physically and mentally abusive parents, not to mention avoiding two kidnap attempts! The irony is that in marrying (in name only) her manager to escape their clutches, she would subsequently find herself in another controlling and violently abusive relationship beyond the scope of this book.
My main criticism of this book is everything I learned from it I could've learned from a good magazine article. It's repetitive, partly because the catalogue of abusive behaviour recounted in it is repetitive by nature; it wastes pages on verbatim conversations which simply cannot be accurate; and it's the story of someone stuck in a rut until her late twenties.
I have not read any other Jackson family biography as I'm not really a fan. One would hope a more accurate and wider ranging picture can be found in other books published since 1991.

[Gabriel Mero · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was drawn in from the first sentence in this book. I didn't know much about the Jackson family going into this book, but I can say that I am definitely intrigued now. I can't believe the abuse that they suffered growing up, how terrible their father was to them all. I had no idea that they were raised as Jehovah's Witnesses and that Michael - and La Toya - were so committed to their faith. I know that this book caused a lot of controversy when it was published, and that a lot of La Toya's allegations were denied by the parents, but I don't see why La Toya would lie, especially when she mentions that Michael discussed the abuse in this own autobiography. I devoured this book in a couple of days, desperate to know more, to find out what would happen next. I am very much looking forward to La Toya's follow up "Starting Over."

[Ania · Rating 2 out of 5]

Książka podaje fakty ogólnie znane fanom sławnego brata La Toyi Michaela.Dobrze się czyta, jeśli ktoś lubi taką literaturę. Po przeczytaniu stwierdzam, że La Toya zazdrości swojemu sławnemu rodzeństwu, zwłaszcza Michaelowi i Janet, odniesionego sukcesu. Kilkakrotnie podkreśla jak silna więź łaczy ją z Michaelem, a jednocześnie nie waha się publicznie podtrzymywać oskarżenia Michaela o molestowanie nieletnich. Na podstawie tej książki wywnioskowałam, że La Toya jest osobą, która jest w stanie zrobić wiele, aby tylko mówiono o niej często i głośno, im częściej i głośniej,tym lepiej.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was probably more shocking when it first came out but a lot of this is old news. The book was a quick read for me, and for the most part enjoyable. However, A lot of what she wrote were exaggerations and half truths. Though, I understand she was not entirely responsible for the misinformation as she was influenced heavily by her now ex husband.

[David Leemon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to give her four stars because, as I remember it, she made it clear what her experiences were, and that's what I expect from an autobiography.

[Koketso · Rating 5 out of 5]

truth

[Amber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, I think she was brave to release it and everyone has their own perception of things but I think she definitely sugar coated a lot of her story and most of the time it didn’t seem very genuine.

[Sandra Geusens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I know much of what she tells in this book, is a lie (as she herself explained later in interviews and her book 'starting over'); I just HAD to read it, being a true 'jackson-addict' :-) I do recommend reading'starting over' first though, for in that one she explains what and why she lied much of this one. It's pretty important background information, especially if you're interested in the whole true story.
Despite the lies, I did enjoy reading mostly because of the many little anecdotes (for instance how it was living with michael in new york when he was filming the wiz, a.o.); and offcourse because this entire family just really intrigues me.

[Jeanettedianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the best book I ever read, but because I am a devout Jackson family watcher, I read this book from front to back. It was entertaining...you could tell though that alot of stuff was exaggerated in Grand La Toya Style. LOL

[Claude Vertu · Rating 1 out of 5]

I make it a point to read from time to time something that I feel doesn't really interest me in the off chance I might learn something. Simply stated, Ms Jackson can't really sing, but she also can't write. Total waste of my time.

[Vanessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was written several years ago. Here story just didn't ring true with me. I can not help but to wonder what her mind state is today.

[Ricky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did a book report on this when I was in middle school. I should go back and reread it some time...

[Selina Hose]

i like it. i learned alot from it about the jacksons

[Phyllis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could not get into it.

[Shaina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book while in high school. I might revisit this book again with a fresh perspective.

[DAISY READS HORROR · Rating 1 out of 5]

I expected more juicy gossip. I was once really excited to read this and I guess as the years went by and after having read so many Jackson family books this one just wasn't anything new at all.

[SHARLENE (MyBookishBehaviour) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretty much full of lies... yikes

[SouthWestZippy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and very interesting book. WOW! This is a survival story.

[Dna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a 5-star read to the childhood me because it gave me insight into the object of my obsession: Michael Jackson.