Mackenzie Phillips Opens Up About Disturbing Relationship With Father Legendary Singer John Phillips

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 โ€œdad 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 doesnโ€™t mean I cosign or agree with what Iโ€™m 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 didnโ€™t know if the father of her unborn baby was her own father. โ€œThe implications, the reality of that, I had an abortion. And I never let him touch me again.โ€

โ€œItโ€™s very, very complicated. And yet I am at peace.โ€

Chynna agreed with Mackenzie that their father was a very complicated man. โ€œSo many different levels to who he was. Obviously, heโ€™s 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 โ€œvery, very dark, dark side,โ€ Mackenzie added. โ€œHe was so dark, and you just didnโ€™t know who you were going to get,โ€ Chynna admitted. โ€œIt was very unpredictable.โ€

Despite her fatherโ€™s actions, Mackenzie was distanced from many of her family members. Chynna, however, stood by her sister even after she came forward with the relationship.

โ€œI was a little girl who had this larger-than-life [father],โ€ Mackenzieย continued. โ€œI 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 fatherโ€™s attention and her addiction to drugs and alcohol that resulted in the disturbing relationship. โ€œOver time your perception of things as they should be, the world as it is, the rules of society, becomes warped and twisted.โ€

โ€œOf course, I was old enough to know better, and clearly from the way I talk about it in the book I knew better. I canโ€™t explain this away. It happened.โ€

John died years later in 2001.