PHOTO GALLERY: See the Oprah Show's past big reveals
On today's Oprah Winfrey Show, former Mamas and the Papas member Mackenzie Phillips revealed a decade-long incestuous affair with her father, John Phillips.
The internet is buzzing today with the news, which will be explained even further in Phillips' upcoming memoir High On Arrival.
The Insider is questioning whether the reveal is "unfair to her family" while Entertainment Weekly wants to know if readers will buy the book. The New York Daily News is polling readers to see if they even believe Phillips' story.
In a satirical post, Huffington Post blogger Lee Stanahan suggested John Edwards "dodged a bullet" now that media attention is switching from his own affair to Phillips.
Phillips' reveal could also be seen as life-imitating-art: Phillips'
own step-mother Michelle Phillips appeared on the hit series Beverly Hills
90210 playing a mother whose daughter is molested by her husband. See it go down here at the 4:30 mark.
In her interview with Oprah, Phillips also blames her father--who died in 2001 of heart attack--for introducing her to drugs. The two, along with Michelle Phillips, Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty, performed together as The Mamas & the Papas. The band enjoyed 11 hit singles before disbanding in the early 70s.
What do you think, Oprah Watchers? Did Oprah score another big story? Or is it just a little TMI?
10 Comments
David St said:
Laura Mackenzie Phillips own mother is Susan Adams. Michelle was Mackenzie's step mother.
Shari Weiss said:
Thanks for the clarification, David. I've added it above.
Psych Tech said:
Mackenzie Phillips is framing this entire deal--the book, the Oprah appearance and so forth--in terms of a advocate for victims of consensual incest. "I can't be the only one this happened to. Somebody has to come forward annd put a face on consensual incest." I'm not too sure that Ms. Phillips is the best spokesperson, considering her 30+ years of drug addiction, repeated attempts to get sober, several arrests and considerable fallout from her addiction. Is she trying to say that as an adult who was raped at age 19 by her own father and who later involved herself in a ten-year-long, drug and alcohol soaked affair with him that somehow their behavior should not be illegal? How about if they robbed banks together while high on heroin and after her father died she came out and confessed that she and her father robbed banks for ten years wihout getting caught? Wouldn't the law still consider her a criminal? Patty Hearst was raped by her kidnappers, coerced into bank robbery and still did seven years.
I can't quite get my head around this whole thing. Is she trying to come out of the closet as a sort-of-proud incest participant? ("I forgave my Dad on his death bed.") Is she trying to give a moral lesson ("Don't take heroin with your Dad, kids!")or to become a national spokesperson for victims of incest? I can't quite get it.
rmkraus said:
These Phillips persons are the most sickening, the most disgusting, the vilest, the most depraved people that I have ever heard of in my entire life (I am 89 years old) And Winfrey, People magazine, Associated Press, ChicagoNow, Chicago Tribune are close.
Robert M Kraus
Akron Ohio
Jimmy Greenfield said:
Well said, Robert. Especially the people at ChicagoNow. Vile, contemptible folk.
cmb said:
So her stepmom Michele Philips and her half-sister China say none of this can be so. OH YES IT CAN amd this is why. I have seen first-hand how an adult father ( or mother) has treated a child who was the conception of another relationship COMPLETELY different than their other children. I believe every word MacKenzie said. It's just that I didn't want to really hear it. Not on Oprah anyway. She ( Oprah) never gave up on that incest talk, she kept going back to it over and over.
rmkraus said:
Thank you for the compliment, Jimmy Greenfield. I don't know you. I got on this ChicagoNow by accident, saw that awful story and made the comment. Are you a Chicago guy?
I notice that Winfrey has an assignment to represent the USA at some Olympic meeting. Bad . . . real bad . . . . . big,big mouth . . . . unwholesome things come out. I don't know how she gets away with peddling that stuff.
r m kraus
akron
Bandwagon Driver said:
r m kraus -
Do you own a zoot suit?
BWD,
the burbs
rmkraus said:
Hey Driver, I got a closet full of them. I don't wear them anymore . . . . . .haven't for a long time . . . . . . I'll send you some . . . . . how many do you want?
r m kraus
akron
KFC said:
>>former Mamas and the Papas member Mackenzie Phillips revealed a decade-long incestuous affair with her father, John Phillips.
Mackenzie Phillips was NOT a member of the original Mamas and Papas. The Mamas and Papas was formed in 1965, when MacKenzie Phillips was only 6. The original band: Denny Doherty, Cass Elliot, Michelle and John Phillips.
In the 1980s, she was in a group The NEW Mamas and Papas with her father, Spanky McFarlane (of Our Gang fame)and Denny Doherty.
>>>The two, along with Michelle Phillips, Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty, performed together as The Mamas & the Papas. She never performed with the Mamas and Papas when Michelle Phillips or Cass Elliot was part of the group. Elliot died in 1974.
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