Paris Jackson is shedding light on what led to her broken engagement with now-ex Justin Long.
“It was a choice that I needed to make to be happy,” Jackson, 28, said on the Wednesday, August 12, episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. “There were times where I did try and end it, but there was this little voice being like, ‘What if however long down the line?’ This is a voice that a lot of us have, of, ‘If I had just hung in there a little bit longer, it would have gotten better.’ I’m the person that needs to be sure — really, really needs to be sure.”
Jackson announced in December 2024 that her then-boyfriend, Long, proposed after two years of dating. They reportedly split in 2025.
“This is also my second engagement that I called off,” Paris, the only daughter of the late Michael Jackson, added to podcast host Alex Cooper. “The first one, I don’t know if you could count the first one, [but it] was real to me, even though we were strung out on drugs and the ring was one that he bought with my money without me knowing. It was still, like, the love was so real for me in that first one, so this was like, ‘Eh, it was the second one.’ No, it wasn’t that casual.”
Through working with a therapist, a clinical psychologist and a “whole council of people,” Paris ultimately realized that Long just wasn’t The One.
“[They were] like, ‘Honey,’ and asking me the right questions of, ‘Why would you stay?’ And my answers weren’t good enough. My answers weren’t good enough,” she noted. “Just because I’ve realized just because someone is a good person doesn’t mean they’re my person, and I have to be happy and I realize that my non-negotiables are allowed to be non-negotiables.”
Paris continued, “If these big major needs are not being met, it doesn’t matter that you’re a good person and you’re not going to cheat on me. That’s not a reason to stay.”
Paris has since been focused on self-love and remains unsure whether walking down the aisle is still in the cards.
“I don’t know,” she said, weighing a third potential engagement. “It’s a day at a time kind of thing for me. I realized that if I spend so much time thinking about what the next 10, 15, 20 [or] 30 years is going to look like, I’ll get there and I’ll look back and be like, ‘Damn, I didn’t enjoy where I was when I was there and I was just thinking about where I’m going to be at now.’”
As for her current dating status, Paris coyly noted that she’s “happy.”
