# Mackenze Phillips Slept with Father John Phillips **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 23, 2009, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225 "2009-09-23T13:07:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/21 "2009-09-23T18:30:43Z")
Yeah, repressed memories are bullshit, plus, he wasn’t around when she was growing up. He left her mom when she was like two. ETA, I’m not trying to defend anything he did, especially not if he raped her when she was passed out, just saying it’s unwarranted to suggest that he molested her as a child. It’s actually not that uncommon for these kinds of boundaries to breeched when it involves relatives who have not had previous familial relationship. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/22 "2009-09-23T18:33:14Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > And to think that I could have gone my whole life without knowing this. How immeasurably enriched my day has been. > > Gee whiz, drug addicts do distasteful things with and to each other. Who knew? > > Regards, > Shodan Be strong, **Shodan**. Just take things one day at a time. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/23 "2009-09-23T18:38:09Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Yeah, repressed memories are bullshit, plus, he wasn’t around when she was growing up. He left her mom when she was like two. > > ETA, I’m not trying to defend anything he did, especially not if he raped her when she was passed out, just saying it’s unwarranted to suggest that he molested her as a child. It’s actually not that uncommon for these kinds of boundaries to breeched when it involves relatives who have not had previous familial relationship. True…It just does feel skeevy to think that you could have a relationship with anyone that started with them raping you. And then add to that it’s your father–even if you didn’t have a traditional father/daughter relationship, the whole thing just makes you want to ask him, WHY, John Phillips, WHY? Not that we’ll ever know. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/24 "2009-09-23T18:40:20Z")
She apparently blames the drugs and has been very forgiving of him. Who knows what was going on in his head, though? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/25 "2009-09-23T18:43:58Z")
It’s pretty oogy, but is it really child “molestation” when two nominally adult hardcore drug addicts decide to engage in and perpetuate an incestuous relationship. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/26 "2009-09-23T19:21:18Z")
> [@astro](#): > > It’s pretty oogy, but is it really child “molestation” when two nominally adult hardcore drug addicts decide to engage in and perpetuate an incestuous relationship. It’s not child molestation, because she wasn’t a child. Incest, obviously, and, if Mackenzie’s description of how it all started is accurate, involved at least one rape (I have a hard time believing that was the only time), which is icky enough. And there’s the drugs in the mix, which add to the unpleasantness even without being how the rest happened. In fact, I think it’s minimizing the ickiness of what DID happen\* to throw the idea of child molestation into the mix without reason. As if drugging your adult daughter, then taking sexual advantage of her when she’s stoned isn’t bad enough. If there were reason to believe it was going on when she was a kid, that’d be one thing. But there’s not, so bringing it up just carries a feeling of ‘but that’s not bad enough!’ - Well, allegedly, but Chynna corroborating at least the incest aspect, and the other kids not saying it’s out of the question, we can probably assume that, at the worst, Mackenzie’s spinning it a bit. She doesn’t seem to be, though. ---
**Author:** ![SaharaTea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SaharaTea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaharaTea)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/27 "2009-09-23T19:29:43Z")
IMO there’s an imbalance of power between a father and daughter even after she’s legally of age. It doesn’t sound like Mackenzie had many examples of healthy relationships in her life, and of course they were both out of their minds on drugs. Her saying the relationship was “consensual” sounds like she’s trying to rationalize his fucked up behavior. After all, he was her father and I’m sure she wanted his love and respect. The whole thing is so incredibly messed up and sad. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/28 "2009-09-23T19:30:06Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > And to think that I could have gone my whole life without knowing this. How immeasurably enriched my day has been. > > Gee whiz, drug addicts do distasteful things with and to each other. Who knew? > > Regards, > Shodan Exactly. And why does it need public airing and discussing? The “man” is dead. MP obviously needs help. Can’t she get that w/o Oprah etc? ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/29 "2009-09-23T19:35:27Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Yeah, repressed memories are bullshit, plus, he wasn’t around when she was growing up. He left her mom when she was like two. > > ETA, I’m not trying to defend anything he did, especially not if he raped her when she was passed out, just saying it’s unwarranted to suggest that he molested her as a child. It’s actually not that uncommon for these kinds of boundaries to breeched when it involves relatives who have not had previous familial relationship. Yeah, it fits the separated-relatives-reunited pattern of adult incest. Sick, you betcha. Child molestation, no. Their sex was another shared addiction - wrong, destructive, pleasurable. (No one does this if it isn’t pleasurable. It’s why they kept coming back.) They may have also enjoyed, in their respective ways, saying “Fuck you!” to the straight, respectable world. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/30 "2009-09-23T19:37:54Z")
Don’t know that much about them, so this is all arm-chair quarterbacking for me. However, I can believe it. Wiki doesn’t talk about her childhood or whether she grew up around him or not. There was a divorce from her mother when she was about 3, but that doesn’t tell me if she spent any time seeing him. However, the wiki on Bijou (her younger half sister) talks about custody battles, and foster care from both parents being judged unfit, and finally ending up with John, so that suggests that Mackenzie didn’t have a lot of contact with him. Apparently at 12, when Mackenzie got cast in _American Graffiti_, her producer became her legal guardian for filming, suggesting she wasn’t in care of either parent then. All of which suggests that there wasn’t a strong family relationship between her and her father. Also factor in that the guy had fidelity issues and was a major drug addict. Drug addicts don’t exactly have good self-control. Plus, judgment is highly impaired. She was present with him doing drugs with him. Yeah. **jayjay** said: > [@](#): > > and Bijou…okay, I have no explanation for Bijou. Not any normal one, anyway. Both Bijou’s parents were druggies. There was a custody battle and both parents deemed unfit for a while, and she was placed in foster care. Eventually John got custody of her. Then she became a model at 13. Yeah, she needs an explanation for being messed up. **MPB in Salt Lake** said: > [@](#): > > Is she just coming out with these claims now??? > > I think I read that she was caught a month or two ago with some drugs (heroin?) at LAX… > > I dont know if what she is saying is true or not, but if she is facing some serious legal trouble, having suffered through an incestious relationship as an adolescent may garner some sympathy from a judge or jury. Trying to outguess motives is a fun hobby. I can totally see that she kept it secret at the time because it had become consensual. I can totally see her keeping it secret for a while after breaking it off because it was private and personal. I can totally see that she didn’t want to sully his name, even if she were angry at him. She eventually did tell Chynna in 1997. Why is she bringing it up now? Maybe since he died she finally feels the need to tell the truth. Maybe her latest round of drug arrest woes factor in a desire to curry sympathy. Maybe she needs money and thinks it will make her book sell better. None of those make it false. **Freudian Slit** said: > [@](#): > > True…It just does feel skeevy to think that you could have a relationship with anyone that started with them raping you. And then add to that it’s your father–even if you didn’t have a traditional father/daughter relationship, the whole thing just makes you want to ask him, WHY, John Phillips, WHY? Not that we’ll ever know. It’s difficult to get into someone else’s head. Apparently John didn’t consider it rape, he considered it loving her. I think that maybe being messed up on drugs and also idolizing him, she probably at first kind of accepted it as his way of loving her. It surprised her, but she kinda went with the flow and accepted it, and then continued consentually for the same reasons. Only later did she really decide that it was wrong and that he violated her. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/31 "2009-09-23T21:08:49Z")
Bottom line - she’s clearly damaged and has been for some time. Could this situation be a factor? Seems likely. Beyond that - well, the fact that she feels a need to publicize it - for either the money or just to get it out there - seems like another data point illustrating how damaged she is. Similar, it seems to someone like Tatum O’Neal… In terms of adult incest - the most famous one I am aware of is the author [Kathryn Harrison](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Harrison) (Wiki link), who wrote a novel that included that and then wrote a memoir revealing it was based on her real-life experiences with her own father… Just…ick. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/32 "2009-09-23T21:10:21Z")
> [@](#): > > But that wasn’t the moment that caused Phillips to end it completely. It wasn’t until the mother of one found herself pregnant again and **didn’t know whether the father of the baby was her then-husband, Shane Fontayne, or her own father**. > > “I was in a relationship with my son’s father as well; he knew nothing,” she said. “He’s one of the dearest men and one of the best parents to our son. He was always there for me. I came up pregnant, and I had an abortion. And I never let [John Phillips] touch me again.” [http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/23/mackenzie.phillips.oprah/](http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/23/mackenzie.phillips.oprah/) OMFG :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/33 "2009-09-23T22:36:48Z")
This is an odd case for me as I can actually believe that he did sleep with his kid as much as I can believe Mackenzie made the whole thing up for publicity. On one hand John Phillips was a spaced out junkie for most of the time, with periods of sobriety so yeah, I can believe he did it. On the other hand what else is left to sell a book about a washed up celeb like Mackenzie so yeah, I can believe she made it up to sell. I mean even if you could prove she was lying she could always fall back with, “Well I was on drugs so much I _thought_ it happened.” ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/34 "2009-09-23T22:37:38Z")
Chynna is backing her up on it. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/35 "2009-09-23T22:43:54Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Chynna is backing her up on it. Yeah, the family dynamics where if your sister’s reaction to incest isn’t “WTF?!?!?!” but, “Yeah, I could see it happening” are definitely odd. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/36 "2009-09-23T22:49:40Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I may be remembering this incorrectly, but I believe that MP has said in previous interviews that she never really had much contact with her father until she was pretty much an adult, that she hero-worshipped him at that time, and that was when he introduced her to drugs. In [this story](http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/23/mackenzie.phillips.oprah/index.html) she says it was quite a bit earlier. > [@](#): > > “The first time I did cocaine I was 11,” she said. “I was staying with my father and his wife at the time and my brother, and my father never made any bones about doing drugs in front of his children or later on sharing drugs with us. He taught me to roll joints when I was 10.” ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2009, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/37 "2009-09-23T23:25:52Z")
[Michelle Phillips is suggesting](http://www.nj.com/entertainment/celebrities/index.ssf/2009/09/michelle_phillips_on_incest_cl.html) that Mackenzie timed this revelation to coincide with Chynna’s new album because she is jealous of her sister. :dubious: She goes on to say that John was a shitty parent, but not, um, …_that_ shitty. Man, what an ugly story. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2009, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/38 "2009-09-24T12:36:21Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > This is an odd case for me as I can actually believe that he did sleep with his kid as much as I can believe Mackenzie made the whole thing up for publicity. > > On one hand John Phillips was a spaced out junkie for most of the time, with periods of sobriety so yeah, I can believe he did it. On the other hand what else is left to sell a book about a washed up celeb like Mackenzie so yeah, I can believe she made it up to sell. > > I mean even if you could prove she was lying she could always fall back with, “Well I was on drugs so much I _thought_ it happened.” True; on her side of the event as told, she was so much of a spaced-out druggie herself that ostensibly she got over the initial shock and then didn’t mind carrying on with it for years. Which is also plausible. So you have someone who’s so spaced-out wasted he thinks it’s a good idea to do “surprise sex” (aka rape, for those with their wits about them) with his wasted-oblivious daughter, and a daughter who’s so spaced-out drugged up she thinks it’s not such a bad idea. This is the sort of script would have got rejected even by John Waters. But we’ve seen before that Life beats any writer, havet we not? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/39 "2009-09-24T19:47:53Z")
True or not I definitely think she’s coming forward to sell books. I can’t really blame her: she’s been a has been so long she’s almost a punchline, yet today she’s the big story on every entertainment series. This could well be her last really big payday opportunity. And I have no problem believing it happened. The stories of his sickness are legion. One story I’ve always remembered about her dad was told by Michelle; after the divorce, by which time John had married Genevieve Waite, she came to pick up Chynna after a custody weekend with her dad and found John and his wife so completely wasted and out of control and with junkie ‘friends’ over and she was so concerned that she not only took Chynna home but also Tamerlane and Bijou (his children with Genevieve), kids who were only related to her by virtue of being her daughter’s half-siblings. Later the kids wound up in foster-care, almost unheard of in celebrity/wealthy families. (Michelle never won a mom of the year award- Chynna has some “Mama was a sleazebag” stories of her own- but I always respected her for that.) I really hope Mackenzie makes a fortune and uses it to get her life straightened out. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225/40 "2009-09-24T19:54:25Z")
I generally don’t endorse guilt by association, but you can learn something about a man by his associates. In John Phillip’s case, Roman Polanski, a man with a known penchant for banging middle school aged girls, and the director behind one the greatest films of all time, a film with father-daughter incest at the center of its plot. Not arguing that this is anything but coincidence, but it does speak to the anything goes aspect of Hollywood culture in this time period. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mackenze-phillips-slept-with-father-john-phillips/511225.md?page=3)