GIVENCHY jacket, shorts, and boots and BVLGARI earrings, necklace, and rings.

Something is bothering paris jackson. Pausing mid-thought, she reaches her rose gold-weighted fingers deep beneath the waistband of her sweatpants to procure an itchy barcode sticker. “Givenchy,” she reads aloud contentedly, smoothing the sticky tag against her thigh. “I’m keeping that.”

Not that she needs to be smuggling garments from photo sets. On a first-name basis with Creative Director, Matthew Williams, jackson sat front row at Givenchy’s FW22 show in Paris this spring—flanked by Diplo and Skepta. Weeks later, she would appear on stage at The Tony’s to honor late father Michael Jackson, where she ran into Hugh Jackman. This month, the singer crashed and crescendoed in pop-punk triumph in her late night performance debut: The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

PRADA top and BVLGARI necklace, bracelets, and rings.

Today, the artist’s roll continues. We’re enjoying the waning afternoon sun in an East Los Angeles backyard, where jackson just completed her cover shoot in record time. She also wrapped her morning errands earlier than anticipated—including a counseling session with the long-time therapist she “loves to death.” It took jackson the better part of a decade to find said therapist, and after several years of biweekly sessions, the 24 year old now feels closer to self-actualization than ever. Still, everything must be taken a “day at a time.”

“A day at a time” is one of several adages jackson imparts over the course of the next hour. Bedecked in technicolor tattoos and copper-toned jewelry, the artist resembles a new-age spiritual leader at an upstate retreat—and exudes all the same philosophical intensity. Her eyes, ice blue and orb-like, are The Great Gatsby’s Dr. Eckleburg-esque: penetratingly perceptive, both all-seeing and all-knowing. Regularly, jackson will divulge hard-earned wisdom (“Time is an illusion,” “Nothing lasts, good or bad, it all passes”). When I allude to her upbringing, particularly time spent at a behavior modification boarding school in Utah, she offers a wry smile and nod. “You’ve really lived,” I note in return. jackson responds with a half-hearted ‘shaka.’ “I think comparing pain and pressure is pointless, like it’s all relative,” she reveals. “It’s not a pissing contest.”

Still, fame is a daily grievance for jackson. Sometimes, she won’t leave her house for weeks at a time. A barrage of daily headlines detail everything from jackson’s outfits to general demeanor with niche specificity (paris jackson shares a laugh with a friend as she steps out for dinner in New York City after performing on The Tonight Show). While you might assume social media has decentralized sensationalist journalism, for jackson, it’s just never let up. “It’s always been tabloid-y for me. I’ve never experienced a shift away from it,” she says, adding: “[But] I try not to pay attention to what people say about me—it’s not really any of my business.”

Whether or not she’s been listening, paris jackson has spent the last five years as the talk of the town. For her first formal interview, she appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone. The teenager then secured an international modeling contract with IMG, quickly earning the support of luxury fashion. Since, she’s modeled for the likes of Rag & Bone and Calvin Klein. She was tapped to front Stella McCartney’s collaboration with Greenpeace, and this year landed her first major beauty contract with KVD. jackson was already a fixture at fashion weeks around the world when she made her “surreal” runway debut in Jean Paul Gaultier’s final couture show before he retired at the top of 2020. In a hippie-inspired snakeskin ensemble, she appeared alongside Dita Von Teese, Karlie Kloss, Irina Shayk, and Joan Smalls.

LOUIS VUITTON sweater and BVLGARI earrings and necklace

Perhaps most memorably, jackson has attended fashion’s most gatekept event multiple times. The artist’s first appearance on the steps of The Met was at age 19, the same month she channeled Marilyn Monroe for the cover of Vanity Fair. Those attuned to the pop culture’s pulse will remember attendees of the 2017 event pioneering not-so-secret bathroom liaisons—an A-lister meet-cute filled with cigarettes and selfies (a circumvention of Anna Wintour’s ‘photo ban,’ and a tradition that seems to have continued every year since). In one of the most infamous snaps of the night, jackson was sandwiched by a cigarette-exhaling Bella Hadid and Ruby Rose. “I kind of feel like I’m breaking anonymity by talking about it,” says jackson. “It’s like Fight Club. Something just feels off about saying what goes down in that bathroom—I feel like I’ve gotta keep my mouth shut. I will say it is a very spontaneous thing.”

While jackson has spent two decades in the orbit of supernovas, she’s still not immune to being starstruck. Mostly, that honor is bestowed upon musicians like Alice Cooper, a long-time “hero.” Meeting Manchester Orchestra, with whom she recorded her debut album, wilted, was her most anxiety-inducing encounter to date. Arriving at the band’s studio in backwater Georgia, jackson’s self-doubt set in: What if they don’t like me? “It is strange, but I’ve been so exposed to [celebrities] over the years that I don’t forget that they’re human beings,” she reveals. “There’s never any, ‘I’m going to take a picture of them when they’re not looking.’”

Fortunately, in the case of Manchester Orchestra, the fanfare was mutual. The Atlanta group would even work with jackson beyond wilted, featuring on her standout 2021 single, “adagio.” It’s a particularly haunting track—one that accrued unanimous praise in the comments section—that shows flashes of what paris jackson is soon to become: a bonafide art-rock icon.

Enter new record, lighthouse, the spiciest entry to the singer’s discography yet. While inspired by the same path-altering heartbreak as wilted, jackson’s latest outing is free of the diffidence that seasoned her first album. Gone is the melancholy—the feathery vocals and layered synths—replaced instead by garage-punk power chords, a welcome twist on jackson’s wistful brand of folky alt-pop. It’s an evolution that signals a new era for jackson’s artistry, and her high profile peers are impressed. “I [owe] a lot to the constructive feedback of my colleagues—fellow musicians that I look up to and respect,” she considers. “Any tidbit that they have for me and the things they think I can grow on, I listen to that for sure. There’s no way for me to grow without it.”

Nonetheless, friends in high places are of no real interest to jackson. Between music and movies, jackson’s rolodex is full of Hollywood connections. With an acting reel that includes American Horror Story, and an ensemble film co-starring Charlize Theron, it would be all too easy for the young star and Marvel superfan to reach out to the likes of director Taika Waititi—an acquaintance and “sweetheart”—about a role, but that’s not jackson’s style. “I don’t believe in asking for favors, because I’ve had enough people do that to me,” she explains. “I’m friends with people because of who they are as people, not because of what they do, or can do, for me.”

VERSACE corset, TOD’S skirt, and BVLGARI earrings, necklace, bracelets, and rings.

jackson’s most valuable relationship is with herself, she says. She knows it sounds corny to say she enjoys long walks in her downtime, but it’s the truth. She’d love to learn the bagpipes, or go off the grid in Appalachia. The first time she felt truly free was when she backpacked Europe by herself, purchasing a one-way ticket to Poland and making her way to Paris. For the most part, she could travel unrecognized. Reclaiming her sense of self after an unforgivingly spotlit childhood has become a top priority for her. “It’s an endless process,” the singer says of her personal growth. “But I’m also fully aware that half of what I’m saying may be incorrect, and I have to work on the future. I don’t know anything about anything and I’m learning that—I’m trying to stay teachable.”

Recently, jackson shifted her sleeping schedule. For years, she would go to bed at five or six in the morning after recording. Now, she’s asleep just after midnight and awake before noon, which allows time for work as well as hobbies, like her newfound affinity for rock-climbing. Nonetheless, her creative schedule is still free from constraint. jackson can go months without writing a song, and then turn around five in a week. It’s a tumultuous partnership, but as the treble tattoo on jackson’s ring finger suggests, she and music are in it for the long haul. “I’m learning how to be a friend to myself,” she says. “It’s all baby steps, a day at a time.”

BURBERRY sweater and skirt and BVLGARI necklace and rings.

On several occasions, paris jackson has met fans with her lyrics or album cover inked onto their skin. She’s been known to break down during such encounters, crying alongside her devotees. It’s moments like these that remind her to stay vigilant in the face of bad reviews. Besides, as her own harshest critic, jackson beats them to the punch. “Rejection happens regardless,” she says. “If we’re going to get rejected anyway, we might as well just lean into what we’re passionate about. Like music makes me happy, and I’m passionate about it—there’s going to be many people who reject it because they don’t like my sound.”

Freedom from the court of public opinion means jackson can fearlessly platformize her politics. In 2017, paris jackson took the Grammy’s stage with an evocative call-to-arms: “We could really use this kind of excitement at the [Dakota Access] Pipeline protest guys!” she declared before introducing The Weeknd. Three years later, photos would circulate of jackson at the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, her sign reading “Peace, love and justice.” Later she witnessed bullets fly from police forces. “We were being shot at by cops that were right over there,” she claims, gesturing 20 or so feet to her left. “But if I need to be on the frontlines, that’s what I’ll do. If we don’t use our platform, what is it for?”

SPORTMAX bodysuit and tie and BVLGARI earrings, necklace, bracelets, and rings.

jackson’s latest political “disappointment” is one shared by millions across the United States—the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court. The decision reaffirmed that “the right wing and the left wing are part of the same bird”—another astute observation shared without hesitancy. In fact, paris jackson navigates most topics like a Jeopardy! contestant, deliberating for a mere moment to deliver each thought with careful consideration. As such, she also has a quick-fire answer to everything. Her first crush? Peter Dinklage. Her biggest flaw? People-pleasing. Biggest fear? “Abandonment.” Remembering her first breakup (junior high), she remarks: “It taught me what any form of trauma has taught me—resilience.”

It’s in jackson’s introspection that her legacy lies. Much like Fitzgerald’s fictional Eckleburg, jackson has spent years surveying culture from a great height—weathering child superstardom, abandonment, and instability, as much as glitz, glamor, and the insatiable curiosity of anyone within clicking distance. It’s perhaps for this reason jackson is now ready to step behind the spotlight, illuminating the way for the lost or lonely still stuck in the dark. Both within and without, paris jackson is on a pedestal of her own design: the ‘in’ crowd’s ultimate outsider, with a Givenchy sticky tag adhered to her polyester pants. And she’ll keep it that way.

Photographed by Zhamak Fullad
Styled by Mui-Hai Chu
Hair: Miles Jeffries
Makeup: Pauly Blanch
Nails: Emi Kudo
Flaunt Film by Nathan Presley
Written by Beatrice Hazelhurst