Jacko Says Dad Belted Jackson 5

Feb. 10, 2003 -- Michael Jackson claims his father belted him and his brothers during Jackson 5 rehearsals, but a family lawyer says family discipline is what drove the children to success.

In one portion of Martin Bashir's documentary Living With Michael Jackson, which was broadcast exclusively in the United States on ABC's 20/20 on Thursday, Jackson speaks wistfully of missing out on part of his own childhood.

After Bashir and Jackson sat down to watch film of the Jackson 5 performing, the pop star said that the group's flawless stage act and his own catapult to fame came at a very high price.

‘He Would Tear You Up’

Jackson claimed that if he and his brothers didn't dance and sing well enough, their father, Joe Jackson, would strike them with a belt.

"He would tear you up if you missed. So not only were we practicing, we were nervous rehearsing because he sat in the chair and he had this belt in his hand, and if you didn't do it the right way he would tear you up, really get you," Jackson told Bashir. "And I got it a lot of times but I think my brother Marlon got it the most, 'cause he had a hard time at first and he tried so hard and it was always, 'Do it like Michael.'The others were nervous and I was nervous too because he was tough."

Brian Oxman, an attorney for the Jackson family, said the family stands behind Michael Jackson and supports him 100 percent, but that the accusations against the Jackson family patriarch are not entirely true.

"Joe Jackson was a severe disciplinarian, he wanted his children to be a success," Oxman said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America today.

But the lawyer says the Jackson family believes the father thought he was doing what was best for his family. He says the father believed he was keeping his children off the streets of Gary, Ind., and away from drugs.

"He took them to perform. When they refused, he disciplined them," Oxman said, adding that the father admitted hitting his children.

‘Shocked, Outraged and Terrified’

According to Oxman, the Jackson family is very upset about the documentary. Oxman said the Jacksons were "shocked, outraged and terrified" at the way Michael Jackson was portrayed in Living with Michael Jackson, which they branded as "yellow journalism."

The documentary, which drew 27 million viewers in the United States, is the result of Bashir's spending eight months with nearly unfettered access to Jackson. In it, Bashir pointed out that although Jackson was accused in 1993 of molesting a boy who stayed at his Neverland Ranch, Jackson is still having children stay over, with some sleeping in his bedroom.

Jackson was not charged in the 1993 case. He reached a financial settlement with the accuser's family.

In the Bashir documentary, one 12-year-old boy said that he had stayed over in Jackson's bedroom, and that Jackson slept on the floor while he slept in the entertainer's bed.

Oxman said that the interview was edited in such a way that statements and events were taken out of context.

"This journalist has taken out of context all the filming, all the things that were seen and done," Oxman said. "All of the adult supervision which is at Neverland ranch on a 24-hour-a-day basis was edited out of the program."

Last November, Jackson caused quite a stir after dangling his youngest child, Prince Michael II, from a balcony in Berlin as a crowd of fans gathered below. The family thinks Jackson may have been acting somewhat haphazardly, but that his actions were blown out of proportion, the lawyer said.

Granada, the television company behind the documentary, has said theprogram was "a truthful, open and intimate portrayal of manyaspects of Michael Jackson's extraordinary life."

A Real-Life Peter Pan?

In the documentary, Jackson said that as a boy, though he was able to run away and escape the blows sometimes, his father beat him "too much," sometimes grabbing an ironing cord to whip him with, Jackson said.

"But when he could catch me, oh my God it was bad, it was really bad," Jackson said.

But Oxman said that instead of being criticized, Joe Jackson should be lauded for bringing up one of the most successful families in American history, despite humble beginnings in a small house in Gary, Ind.

The whirlwind of constant media attention was much worse on the children's psyche than any punishment dished out by Joe Jackson, Oxman said.

Because of their early music careers, each of the Jackson children is attempting to prolong or recapture their childhoods in some way, the lawyer said. But, he said, Michael Jackson — who invites children to visit Neverland and claims he is a real-life Peter Pan — is certainly "unique" in the extent to which he has chosen to relive his childhood.