As Prince Jackson forges ahead, lessons from his famous father continue to stick with him.
In a rare new interview for FOX Soul's The Mix, the 24-year-old firstborn of Michael Jackson reflected on the greatest lesson the late king of pop taught him. "There's so many nuggets there that are just so close to my heart that I feel like they're applicable at all times," Prince answered. "But the one that is my guiding principle is that 'You never stop learning.'"
While he graduated college in 2019, "That doesn't mean that I stopped learning," Prince continued. "And my father also would say something along the lines of, 'The minute that you stop learning is the minute that you are going to start dying.'"
"You're gonna make mistakes," he pointed out, "but you're gonna have to dust your self off and come back."
Prince has since carved out a path in philanthropy, having co-founded the Heal Los Angeles Foundation while a college student. As for becoming an artist like many of his famous family members, that sounds like it was out of the question.
"If I did [think of becoming an artist], my family would be very honest and tell me that it's not for you," Prince said. "I don't have the voice for singing and it took me a while to learn what a beat was, but I got that down at least. I just can't dance."
Still, as the son of Michael Jackson, music, he said, "echoed through the halls of the house." Prince recalled how his father had exposed him and his siblings to all genres of music, including classical music like Mozart and Beethoven. "There really wasn't a genre that we didn't listen to," he said. "He was an artist and he had an appreciation for his craft."
And, of course, they knew dad's hits. "My sister [Paris Jackson] and I, we were worked up about saving the animals," he recalled, "and we did a protest in our bedroom listening to 'They Don't Care About Us.'"