Joe Jackson, patriarch of the Jackson family of performers who include Janet and the late Michael, has been hospitalized in the final stages of terminal cancer, according to numerous reports.
Family members, including his wife Katherine, are said to have visited Jackson, 89, this week in the hospital. He reportedly suffered from a variety of ailments in recent years, including dementia, strokes and at least one heart attack. He was also injured in a car accident a year ago.
The Daily Mail claims that Jackson’s “handlers” had barred certain family members from visiting him, which his son Jermaine spoke about to the paper.
“No one knew what was going on — we shouldn’t have to beg, plead, and argue to see our own father, especially at a time like this,” he said, The Mail reported. “We have been hurting. We were not being told where he was and couldn’t get the full picture. Even from the doctor. My mother was worried sick.
“He’s very, very frail, he doesn’t have long,” Jackson said of his father. “The family needs to be by his bedside — that’s our only intention in his final days.”