Jacksons Fall Upon Hard Times

BY Brock ThiessenPublished Mar 24, 2008

It’s no secret Michael Jackson is not having the best of times financially, yet little did we know that the other Jacksons are in rags rather than riches. In a recent New York Post article, cleverly headlined "Jacko clan in deep funk,” the newspaper has exposed the lesser Jacksons’ current financial state, and it ain’t pretty.

According to the Post, the family is barely scraping by, with one brother repairing cars, another stocking groceries and others still crashing at their parents. Here is the newspaper’s Jackson-by-Jackson list of the family’s current state of affairs:

Marlon Jackson, 51, an original Jackson 5 member who stocks shelves at a Vons supermarket in San Diego, had to temporarily move into an extended-stay hotel.

Randy, 46, does odd jobs, including fixing cars in a Los Angeles garage owned by a family friend. He recently claimed Michael was going to give him $1.7 million — "a pipe dream,” said another brother last week.

Jackie, 56, the oldest and most debonair of the brothers, is struggling to manage his son Siggy’s aspiring rap career after an Internet clothing business startup and attempts to produce music failed.

Jermaine, 54, shuttles back and forth from his girlfriend’s home in Ventura County, Calif., to his parents’ mansion in Encino, where Jackie and Randy still bunk.

Tito, 55, is the only brother still making music, but it’s a meager living. The guitarist fronts a blues and jazz band that plays small venues and nets him $500 and $1,500 per occasional gig — a far cry from the days when the Jacksons could pull in 50,000 people at $30 a ticket.

Family patriarch Joseph Jackson, 79, spends most of his waking hours conjuring up schemes he hopes will replenish a bank account that once had more money than the FDIC cared to insure. Peddling musical girl groups in Las Vegas and a book about his family in Germany, Joseph, despite evidence to the contrary, is not convinced that time and the music industry have passed him by.

However, despite all this, Joseph is holding his head high, telling the paper, "We can get back out there and set the world on fire. If the Rolling Stones can still rake in the money, so, too, can my boys.”

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