Actor Mackenzie Phillips' family’s reaction to admission of alleged 10-year incestuous relationship with her father
Warning: This article contains discussion of rape which some readers may find distressing.
Actor Mackenzie Phillips wrote a bombshell book on her alleged 10-year incestuous relationship with her father - the frontman of the '60s band The Mamas & The Papas, which divided the family.
The 65-year-old, of Los Angeles in California, published a memoir back in 2009 accusing her late dad John Phillips of raping her in 1979 - the night before she was due to marry a member of the Rolling Stones' entourage.
"I woke up that night from a blackout to find myself having sex with my own father," she wrote in the book, titled High on Arrival.
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The actor explained how when she plucked up the courage to confront her father over the accusations, he said it wasn't rape and instead he made love to her.
Her family were split on the horrific revelation.
Her stepmom Genevieve Waite, and wife at the time the abuse is alleged to have gone on, issued a statement claiming Phillips was 'incapable, no matter how drunk or drugged he was, of having such a relationship with his own child'.
While his second wife, Michelle Phillips, also questioned whether the accusations were real.
Her half-sister Chynna Phillips Baldwin has always backed Mackenzie's claims, noting the 1997 phone call the pair had around 11 years after the alleged abuse ended.
Reflecting on their father 14 years later, while speaking on Chynna's YouTube channel, Chynna said: "One of my favorite individuals in the whole wide world is John Phillips, he's a very - talk about complex, so many different levels to who he was.
"Obviously, he's an amazing songwriter."
Mackenzie interjects: "Genius."
Chynna continued: "You know, I loved his laugh, and yet there was this whole other side to Dad that was kind of like a monster."
Mackenzie added: "Very, very dark side."
Before she later said: "Dad was something else and 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 you for - or him for - it's very complicated it's very, very complicated and yet I am at peace."
When she appeared on Oprah years later after her book came out, she said that it progressed: "Fast-forward...and it's 1981, maybe, and we're touring and I begin waking up after drug-fuelled events with my pants around my ankles and my father sleeping beside me."
She added that she had to forget about it: "Again, 'Don't think, don't look, just keep going.'"
Mackenzie added: "It didn't happen every day, it didn't happen every week, but it certainly happened and it happened enough times."
After the initial assault, she claimed that she began a consensual sexual relationship with her father.
She said: "It's sort of the Stockholm Syndrome, where you begin to love your captor. And I felt great love for my father."
It only ended after she became pregnant and she couldn’t be sure of who the father was.
If you've been affected by any of the issues in this article, you can contact The National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800.656.HOPE (4673), available 24/7. Or you can chat online via online.rainn.org
Topics: Celebrity, Music, US News, Sexual Abuse, Parenting, Sex and Relationships
Joe Yates