The Jackson clan at home in Encino, Calif., in 1971. (From left) Jackie, Michael, unidentified relative, Joseph Jackson Sr., Katherine, Marlon, La Toya (in red dress), Randy, Tito, Rebbie and her daughter Stacee, Jermaine and Janet. (
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Rebbie Jackson may be the least-known performer out of Michael Jackson’s siblings, but aside from his parents, she likely had the biggest influence on the King of Pop.
When she was a teenager, her mother, Katherine, went back to school, leaving her — the oldest of the nine children — in charge of caring for the brood.
“I’m very much the big sister,” Jackson tells The Post. “I helped raise a lot of them. I took care of them and administered the disciplinary action.”
Memories of her role as caregiver in the family’s Gary, Ind., home came flooding back to Rebbie, 59, in the wake of Michael’s death on June 25.
“When he passed, I thought about him the way he was as a kid,” she says, recalling the iconic star’s cherubic smile that first brightened stages as a member of the Jackson 5 and later as a solo artist.
After her brother overdosed on the powerful sedative Propofol, Rebbie, who lives with her husband, Nathaniel Brown, in Las Vegas, canceled a string of performances. She spent two and half months in California at her brother’s and mother’s estates, comforting her family. She also resumed her role as caregiver — this time tending to Michael’s children, Prince, 13; Paris, 12; and Blanket, 8.
“I have to say, for a while, it was very difficult to listen to anything that Michael’s voice was on,” she says. “That’s pretty tough to escape. Everywhere you go — food markets, departments stores, TV and radio — they are playing his music.”
Nearly a year later, Rebbie says she still wakes up in the middle of the night haunted by the circumstances surrounding his brother’s death. His doctor, Conrad Murray, currently awaits trial on manslaughter charges for his role in administering the fatal narcotic and facilitating the legendary singer’s addiction.
“My brother had a problem with drugs, and he was in denial,” Rebbie says. “There were many interventions by the family members, and I was involved in a lot of that. It was such a sad thing and it hurt so bad.”
Time has healed at least some wounds. She is back listening to her brother’s music, and she’s ready to sing. In her stage return, she will headline a tribute show to the Temptations at the Mellow Theater in Scranton, Pa. She plans to perform songs by the legendary Motown group, hits by the Gloved One and numbers from her own catalog.
Rebbie got a later start in show business than her brothers. While they were dancing and singing as a group in the late 1960s and early 1970s, she was married and raising a family in Kentucky.
She first performed with her siblings in 1974 at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, singing “Fever,” a sultry incantation that she plans on dusting off for the April 24 show.
Rebbie recalls Michael bringing her the lyrics and the choreography before the show.
“I learned that song actually on the set. He started chanting the lyrics,” she says. “When you are really involved with the music, it’s whatever comes out of your mouth.”
The mother of three didn’t put out her first album, “Centipede,” until she was 34. Michael produced the record, which eventually went gold, and wrote some of the songs.
Rebbie released three more albums — her last coming in 1998. The soulful chanteuse says she has no plans to release another one any time soon, but is hoping for a reunion tour with her siblings.
“It’s not set in stone, but the sky is the limit,” she says. “I know it would be fun. That would be something I’d really love to be involved with.”