Don McLean has revealed that he has cut his daughter Jackie out of his will after she accused him of mental and emotional abuse.
The ‘American Pie’ singer clearly wasn’t pleased after the 31-year-old spoke out against her father in a tell-all interview with Rolling Stone, where she claimed there “was a constant state of fear” in their house growing up.
“I stopped supporting my daughter last year,” McLean told the Daily Mail on Thursday.
“I have a son [Wyatt], you know, who grew up the same way, who thinks I’m a great father and who has none of these complaints. But I said to my daughter, ‘If you speak out about me and trash me, I’m going to disinherit you.'”
McLean continued, “She’s been automatically disinherited — that’s almost a $3 million trust fund that went down the tubes.
“I’ve always supported my daughter — $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 a year, doubling her husband’s salary. I wanted to make sure the grandkids had everything they wanted.”
In the damning interview, Jackie recalled an incident from when she was around two years old in which Don was “screaming” in her face.
Love Classic Rock?
Get the latest Classic Rock news, features, updates and giveaways straight to your inbox Learn more
“My dad couldn’t find a key to a piece of furniture and he thought that I hid it and he was just screaming in my face,” she said.
“I couldn’t leave, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t know where the key was and I was just trapped in that moment having to endure the fear and the trauma until it ended. That was just a normal kind of thing that there would be screaming and yelling.
“You’re conditioned to feel like he has power over you… like he had ultimate power,” she continued.
“I really felt like he was some sort of God. So, it’s not just that I’m worried that he’s gonna yell at me. It’s like he has … enough power over my life that if he’s angry at me he can do anything to ruin my life.”
Don hit back at his daughter’s allegations in a Rolling Stone interview of his own, but admitted he “did have a temper”.
“I don’t understand what mental and emotional abuse is,” he told the publication.
“There would never be any paralysing attacks ’cause her mother was always around.
“I would never attack her anyway; I would never attack anybody. If I yelled at you for five minutes you’d think I yelled at you for an hour because it’s shocking. I would snap sometimes; I did have a temper.”
For more on this topic, head over to the Classic Rock Observer.
Check out ‘Vincent’ by Don McLean:
