The terrible story of a famous actress who had an affair with her father for many years

The American actress spoke about her experience of being raped at 18 by her father, musician John Phillips, and about their difficult relationship that continued over the years.

Mackenzie Phillips (64), best known for her roles in American Graffiti, One Day at a Time and the Disney series So Strange, is one of the daughters of John Phillips, the group's leader. The Mamas and the Papas", famous for the 1960s hit "California Dreamin'".

“I was very attached to my father. “I was always waiting for his return,” she admitted. John Phillips had a son, Jeffrey Phillips, in 1957, and a daughter, Mackenzie Phillips, with his first wife, Susan Adams, in 1959.

Mackenzie played rebel Julie Romano in One Day at a Time.

Their marriage lasted from 1957 to 1962, after which the artist immediately married Michelle, with whom he had a daughter, China Phillips. In 1971, John had another son, Tamerlane Phillips, with actress and model Genevieve Waite, whom he married in 1972, and their daughter Bijou Phillips was born in 1980.

Five years later they divorced. John married Farnaza Arasta in 1995 and they remained together until his death in 2001.

Mackenzie played the rebellious Julie Romano in One Day at a Time in 1975 when she was just 16 years old. She was arrested in 1977 for inappropriate behavior and being under the influence of drugs and alcohol, but remained on the show until 1980, when she was fired. Her father, John, was also accused of drug trafficking: in the late 1980s, he was arrested for buying over-the-counter drugs.

When the truth came out

The relationship between the actress and the musician came to light many years later when she confessed in her 2009 memoir, High on Arrival. Mackenzie publicly read a passage containing a rape allegation against her father on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

“That night I fell asleep as if I was in a state of amnesia. I slept with my father. I don't remember how it started or how it ended. Was this the first time? Has this happened before? I did not know. And I still don't know. All I can say is that I learned about it for the first time,” she admitted, as quoted by the international press.

The next morning, Mackenzie woke up alone in her hotel room and began to piece together the fragments of memories that barely crossed her mind.

Mackenzie told Oprah that the video kept playing in her head and she tried to avoid watching it for 31 years. Although he couldn't say if this was the first time this had happened, he knew for sure that it wasn't the only time.

“I felt a deep need to get his attention,” McKenzie testified. “Fast forward... It's probably 1981 and we're in the middle of a tour. I'm starting to recover from drug episodes with my pants down and my dad sleeping next to me,” she continued.

“I told myself again: “Don’t think, don’t look, move on!” This did not happen every day, not every week. But it has definitely happened quite a few times,” she continued. Mackenzie said she tried to confront John.

“After the first experience, I went to my father and told him that we needed to talk about how he abused me. My father said: You accused me of abuse? You think we made love, right? At that moment I felt like I was truly alone,” she said. In his book, Mackenzie described subsequent meetings as consensual. “I loved my father,” she told Oprah.

“I waited for him to come back, again and again. I always tried to attract his attention and felt a deep inner need for this. The whole story was full of heroin, cocaine, alcohol, marijuana, barbiturates... The perception of things, the real world, social rules - everything was distorted, changed.” A few years later, in 2016, Mackenzie admitted to feeling "horrified" during a 2009 interview with Oprah.

The actress was afraid not so much that Oprah wouldn't believe her, but that she was sharing "this incredible information that might not even be relevant to the public."

Genevieve Phillips: “He was incapable of having that kind of relationship with his own child.”

John's third wife, Genevieve, who was married to John when Mackenzie alleged the abuse took place, said: “John was a good man who had an addiction to drink and drugs. "He was incapable, whether he was drunk or high, of having that kind of relationship with his own child."

Genevieve died in 2019. Her daughter Bijou said she was 13 when Mackenzie told her she was in a "consensual relationship" with their father. “Mackenzie’s story with our father is hers. But it is also a dark story spanning 30 years of drug abuse,” Bijou said in a statement to Oprah.

“I hope he comes to terms with this and finds peace. The life I lived with my father was completely different. This was an example. He was encouraging and loving. The man who raised me could never do such things. And if that were true, it would pain me to think that my family would leave me alone with him.”

In response, Mackenzie told Oprah that she was not concerned about Bijou's safety because by that time their father had "changed his lifestyle as much as he could" and she did not think her sister should have ever been subjected to any "sexual danger."