Jackson was born to Katherine and Joe Jackson on May 16, 1966 at St Mary's Mercy Hospital in Gary, Indiana. She was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. She did not want to be an entertainer. She wanted to become a race-horse jockey. However her father planned for her to go into the show business. When Jackson was seven she went on stage in the Las Vegas Strip with her siblings in a routine show at the MGM Casino.