Mackenzie Phillips (L), John Phillips (R).Photo:Michael Buckner/Variety/Penske Media via Getty; JON LEVY/AFP via Getty
Michael Buckner/Variety/Penske Media via Getty; JON LEVY/AFP via Getty
Mackenzie Phillips is opening up about how she’s learned to forgive her father, The Mamas & the Papas singerJohn Phillips.
“Dad was something else,” she said. “I get a lot of criticism and a lot of trolling online for having forgiveness in my heart. Forgiveness, because forgiving is for me, not for the other person. And forgiving doesn’t mean I cosign or agree with what I’m forgiving him for.”
In the memoir, Phillips wrote that her dad raped her when she was 19 years old while they were under the influence of drugs and alcohol. She revealed that they then had an incestuousrelationship that lasted 10 years.
“It’s very complicated. It’s very complicated, and yet, I am at peace,” she continued.
Phillips Baldwin, 55, also took the opportunity to reflect on their father.
“Obviously, he’s an amazing songwriter and, you know I loved his laugh, and yet there was this whole other side to dad that was, I mean, kind of, like a monster. He was so dark, and you just didn’t know who you were going to get. It was very unpredictable,” she said.
While inviting fans to watch the video in apost on Instagram, Phillips Baldwin, whose mother is former Mamas & the Papas singer Michelle Philiips, referred to her older sibling as a “survivor” and “overcomer.”
Phillips previously revealed whyshe wanted to speak in detail about her experiencein a 2017 interview withOprah Winfrey.
John and Mackenzie Phillips in February 1984.Patrick McMullan/Getty
Patrick McMullan/Getty
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“I felt like here I was with this huge piece of information that maybe wasn’t even fit for public consumption," theOne Day at a Timeactress told Winfrey. “I hadn’t done my due diligence. When I wrote the book I just thought, ‘I’m not gonna Google this, I’m not gonna Google that. I’m just going to tell my story as it happened to me.' But then, in retrospect, there was some due diligence that I missed doing. Like preparing myself for losing my family.”
In her 2017 book,Hopeful Healing: Essays on Managing Recovery and Surviving Addiction, Phillips shared that herrevelation ruined relationships with family members.
“I’ve come to understand that some in my family have chosen to hold on to the pain and anger they felt when I came out with the truth about my dad,” Phillips wrote in 2017. “I understand that they’re still caught in a textbook response of devaluing the victim and holding up the perpetrator.”
source: people.com
