Warning: This article discusses disturbing relationship dynamics that some may find triggering or disturbing.
In a brandย new interviewย actress Mackenzie Phillips is opening up about her relationship with her father.ย
Philips is best known for her roles on One Day at a Time, So Weird, and most recently Orange Is the New Black. Unfortunately, she is remembered for her decades-long incestuous relationship with her father, lead singer of the Mamas & the Papas, John Phillips.
While talking publicly with her sister Chynna Phillips Baldwin, Mackenzie talked about John, saying her โdad 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 doesnโt mean I cosign or agree with what Iโm forgiving him for.โ
According to Mackenzie, the incestuous relationship began after her father raped her when she was 19 years old. The relationship continued for 10 years until she became pregnant.

She didnโt know if the father of her unborn baby was her own father. โThe implications, the reality of that, I had an abortion. And I never let him touch me again.โ
โItโs very, very complicated. And yet I am at peace.โ
Chynna agreed with Mackenzie that their father was a very complicated man. โSo many different levels to who he was. Obviously, heโs an amazing songwriter and, you know I loved his laugh, and yet there was this whole other side to Dad that was, I mean, kind of, like a monster.โ

He had a โvery, very dark, dark side,โ Mackenzie added. โHe was so dark, and you just didnโt know who you were going to get,โ Chynna admitted. โIt was very unpredictable.โ
Despite her fatherโs actions, Mackenzie was distanced from many of her family members. Chynna, however, stood by her sister even after she came forward with the relationship.

โI was a little girl who had this larger-than-life [father],โ Mackenzieย continued. โI adored my father, I waited for him over and over again. I was constantly trying to get his attention, and had this deep, visceral yearning for connection.โ
It was that need for her fatherโs attention and her addiction to drugs and alcohol that resulted in the disturbing relationship. โOver time your perception of things as they should be, the world as it is, the rules of society, becomes warped and twisted.โ
โOf course, I was old enough to know better, and clearly from the way I talk about it in the book I knew better. I canโt explain this away. It happened.โ
John died years later in 2001.



