Mackenzie Phillips Opens Up About Forgiving Her Dad, John Phillips, For 10-Year Incestuous Relationship

Actress Mackenzie Phillips opened up about how she managed to forgive her late father, John Phillips, the lead singer of the folk-rock vocal group, The Mamas and the Papas.

Her comments were delivered 14 years after she revealed in her 2009 memoir, High on Arrival, that she had an incestuous relationship with her father that lasted for ten years.

The One Day at a Time star focused on the idea of forgiveness during a conversation that she had with her half-sister, Chynna Phillips Baldwin.

During this video, Mackenzie responded to the criticisms.

“Dad was something else,” she said. “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 doesn’t mean I cosign or agree with what I’m forgiving him for.”

In the actress’ memoir, Mackenzie discussed how her musician father molested her when she was 19 years old. He had done so while they were under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

“It’s very complicated. It’s very complicated, and yet, I am at peace,” Mackenzie added.

“I want you to know that when I stood by you, I meant it with all my heart. I really did,” Chynna said. “I believed you, and I want you to know that I was proud of you for coming out even though it was painful for everybody.”

Additionally, Chynna shared some comments regarding her father.

“Obviously, he’s an amazing songwriter and, I loved his laugh, and yet there was this whole other side to dad that was, I mean, kind of, like a monster,” she said. “He was so dark, and you just didn’t know who you were going to get. It was very unpredictable.”

Chynna praised her sister for speaking out by posting a selfie of the two of them on Instagram.

She wrote in her post’s caption: “The people who have suffered the most make the greatest comforters. That’s you. I love you!!!”

During a 2016 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Mackenzie spoke in great detail about her experience with her father.

“I felt like here I was with this huge piece of information that maybe wasn’t even fit for public consumption,” she said. “I hadn’t done my due diligence. When I wrote the book I just thought, ‘I’m not gonna Google this, I’m not gonna Google that. I’m just going to tell my story as it happened to me.’ But then, in retrospect, there was some due diligence that I missed doing. Like preparing myself for losing my family.”

The actress wrote in her 2017 book, Hopeful Healing: Essays on Managing Recovery and Surviving Addiction: “I’ve come to understand that some in my family have chosen to hold on to the pain and anger they felt when I came out with the truth about my dad,” she said. “I understand that they’re still caught in a textbook response of devaluing the victim and holding up the perpetrator.”