He may have been the driving force behind the Mamas & the Papas—but when he wasn’t writing sunny flower-child anthems, John Phillips was intent on destroying himself and everyone in his orbit.
1. He Was A Complicated Man
It’s ironic that one of the co-founders of a band called the Mamas & the Papas ended up being a terrible papa. It’s also too bad that behind the band’s era-defining, ear-pleasing harmonies, Phillips caused mindblowing amounts of discord and chaos. To make matters more confusing, one minute Phillips was his charming and talented self, and the next he was careening through cash, substances, relationships, and his career.
If you’re already feeling the whiplash, strap in cause you ain’t seen nothin’ yet…
2. His Father Was A Wild Man
Sure you can chalk up John Phillips’ outlaw persona to his coming of age in the counterculture era, but his wild streak runs all the way back to the Wild West. During WWI, Phillips’ father Claude “saw more boudoirs than battlefields,” and on the ship home, he went on a drinking and card-playing binge that would change his life in unexpected ways…
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3. His Father Married A Teenager
A boozy card game, a literal roll of the dice, and all of a sudden Claude had won the deed to a saloon in eastern Oklahoma. Claude wasn’t too excited about his big win until someone mentioned that the town was full of gorgeous Cherokee women. Just like that, Claude, a ladies man like his future son, was stepping off the train in Okmulgee and settling down with a 16-year-old.
4. He Had An Ominous Start
John Phillips’ knack for catching people off guard started before he was even born. He was a “surprise!” baby who arrived when his siblings were 12 and 10, and his mother was the ripe old age of 31. He was born on August 30, 1935, in South Carolina, the same week the Labor Day Hurricane destroyed the eastern seaboard.
Phillips later called the storm “a ferociously destructive omen of Hurricane John’s later path”.
CBS Television, Wikimedia Commons
5. He Was Desperate For A Change
Attending an army school where he had to endure beatings and nuns who watched him shower likely instilled Phillips with a healthy sense of antiauthoritarianism. To make matters worse, he watched his former Marine father fade from glory after a series of heart attacks. Phillips would find him languishing in the putrid basement with his uniform out of place, and bottles littering the floor.
Between this depressing tableau and a heartbreaking revelation soon to come from his mother, it was easy to see why Phillips was in a hurry to strike out on his own…
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6. His Mother Made An Astonishing Confession
Tensions were rising between Phillips’ parents and after one particularly nasty fight, his mother came to his room “shaken and soused” and asked Phillips if he believed that she would “marry a drunk like that man downstairs and then bear a third child by him after 10 years?” She proceeded to describe her affair with Phillips’ real father—a sensitive, intelligent army doctor.
Phillips came to a sudden realization: “To survive, I had to leave”.
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7. He Was Down And Out
In a somewhat naive but well-intentioned decision, Phillips wanted to make his father proud by attending army school. When that didn’t work out, he tried a liberal arts college, which was also a bust. At 21, he was back in his hometown and working his way through a series of depressing jobs. Each night he would try to escape by drinking and playing his guitar—but one night, fate had other plans.
ABC Television, Wikimedia Commons
8. He Was A Scoundrel
One lonely evening he ended up running into his old high school crush at a bar and to his joy, she was single. Phillips and Susan Adams, a well-heeled descendant of John Adams, hit it off, much to her parents’ dismay. Before they knew it, Susan was pregnant. The couple decided to wed, but that didn’t stop Phillips from shamelessly running around with scores of other women.
Their son Jeffrey was born on December 13, 1957, and by the new year, Phillips had left. However, this wasn't the end of their story.
Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
9. He Was Not A Family Man
What kind of man cheats on his pregnant wife with several different women, including her secretary, and up and leaves her with a young baby—more than once? John Phillips. He had women calling the house telling his wife he had knocked them up. His wife’s parents were offering to set her up in a house with a maid if she’d just leave him, but she kept trying to make it work.
In the spring of 1959, Susan was pregnant again. Then, just as Phillips’ music career was starting to take off, a daughter, Mackenzie, was born.
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10. He Found A Flower Child
Not one to embrace work-life balance, Phillips focused all his energy on his successful folk band The Journeymen. Well, not all of his energy…he made sure to save some mojo for the groupies. Meanwhile, Susan, who was home raising his children, turned a blind eye to his many flings. Unfortunately, while the band was touring California, there was one teen who stood out from the crowd…
Hallway Group, The Mamas & The Papas Story: Straight Shooter
11. His Wife Thought She Had His Number
As heartbreaking as it was, Susan was used to her husband’s not-so-secret affairs and the late-night phone calls and pregnancy scares that went along with them. So when 17-year-old Holly Michelle Gilliam showed up on their doorstep and announced that she was in love with Phillips, Susan was unperturbed—been there, done that.
She invited the misguided waif inside…
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12. His Wife Was A Class Act
Amazingly, Susan was the perfect hostess. She poured herself a drink and proceeded to whip up a tuna sandwich for her unannounced guest. We can only imagine the dark pleasure she must have taken in calmly telling Holly that John had affairs all over the country. Little did Susan know, that this time everything was about to change in ways she could never have imagined.
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13. He Was Driven By Lust
Even though Phillips had recently lured his wife 4,800 km away from her home to try to work things out, his newfound obsession with his “slinky California fox” Holly meant the end of the marriage, and in 1962, John and Susan divorced. John and Holly, who now went by the name Michelle Phillips, moved to New York.
Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
14. His Dream Girl Couldn’t See Red Flags
Phillips had sacrificed a lot to be with his new young wife and he wanted to do everything in his power to keep her faithful. He was extremely possessive and went to extreme lengths to keep her under his thumb. For instance, he made sure she lived in a supervised dorm for teens while he was on tour. Yikes. He also got her to turn down a teen modeling contract. Controlling much?
Phillips realized he was going to have to get resourceful if he wanted to make sure Michelle didn’t stray.
15. He Was About To Get A Taste Of His Own Medicine
Despite all of Phillips’ manipulative efforts to keep his wife away from other men, Michelle was able to slip through the cracks. The couple had not even celebrated their first anniversary when Michelle called John from California to tell him that she had slept with someone else—someone younger and less controlling. He did not take it well.
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16. He Made Lemonade
After John had overcome the shock and jealousy, he was able to lay on the charm and convince Michelle to come back to him. He knew he had to keep an eye on her so, as part of his plan, he put her into singing lessons. Before long, the couple were making beautiful music together alongside Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty as the Mama & the Papas.
The romantic upheaval begat a song that didn’t really go anywhere, but it did help John realize what fired up his songwriting flames.
Hallway Group, The Mamas & The Papas Story: Straight Shooter
17. He Knew He Was Onto Something Big
On one autumn day in New York, John—high as a kite—shook Michelle awake and asked her to help him with a song. She tried to go back to sleep but he insisted: “Help me now. You’ll thank me for this someday”. He started to sing the now-iconic lyrics, “All the leaves are brown / and the sky is grey,” and she then added in some of her own lines.
From that point on, pop music—and their lives—would never be the same.
18. His Success Didn’t Mean Smooth Sailing
John Phillips was right—at least about Michelle owing him for giving her a co-writer credit on “California Dreamin’”. The world had never heard anything like the breezy four-part male-female harmonies and the song became the first of many huge hits. It’s too bad Michelle had a strange way of repaying the favor behind the scenes…
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19. His Wife Was Unhinged
As the Mamas & the Papas produced hit after hit, life was getting messy behind the scenes. Michelle couldn’t keep her hands off bandmate Denny Doherty, even going as far as playing footsie when John was in the same room. To make matters worse, bandmate Cass Elliot, who was also in love with Doherty, finally confronted Michelle with a heartbreaking question:
“You could have any man you want. Why would you take mine?”
Hallway Group, The Mamas & The Papas Story: Straight Shooter
20. He Freaked Out
It seems John Phillips never met a double standard he didn’t like. It was fine if he was unfaithful and it was fine if he mixed business with pleasure, but not Michelle. When he finally found out about her and Doherty’s affair, he had a hot-headed reaction. He told Michelle that sleeping with the group's tenor had crossed the line. Michelle, who was realizing how important she was to the band’s success, decided to see if she could push John to the brink…
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21. His Wife Tested His Limits
The 60s were a time of blurred lines in the name of free love, baby. It didn’t matter that John and Michelle were living apart or that John had a new model-socialite girlfriend—Michelle still knew how to hit him where it hurt. She decided to start an affair with one of John’s rivals, Gene Clark of the Byrds—but what began as a hush-hush tryst became public in the most shocking way.
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22. He Was Going To Need His Game Face
The night started as any normal Mama & the Papas concert would, but after a song or two, John started to notice that something was wrong. Namely, Michelle and Elliot, AKA the female half of his band, were only serenading Gene Clark who was sitting front-row center in a red shirt and having the time of his life.
It took Herculean strength for John to keep his cool for the rest of the show.
Hallway Group, The Mamas & The Papas Story: Straight Shooter
23. He Went Nuclear
Michelle’s red-hot affair had successfully pushed John’s biggest button. As soon as they got backstage, he raged, “I made you who you are, and I can take it away. You’re fired!” The heartwrenching twist came when Michelle realized that neither Doherty nor Elliot was going to back her up. John was not joking around—he immediately got Jill Gibson to take Michelle’s spot.
After only two months, the group forgave Michelle and she was back in the band.
Hallway Group, The Mamas & The Papas Story: Straight Shooter
24. He Had A Summer Of Love
Just because the band was back together, it didn’t mean that Phillips’ life was calm. As he and Michelle worked their butts off to organize the trailblazing Monterey International Pop Festival, AKA ground zero for all things flower power, they had also been productive in other, ahem, ways—shortly after the couple got home, they were in for a surprise…
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25. He Was Living The Dream
John and Michelle were thrilled to discover that they were expecting a baby. Life was chaotic but good. They were just a couple of hippie hedonists living a wild life of rock and roll excess. Need proof? John added a hash den to their Bel Air mansion and spent $100,000 on an in-home recording studio so he “could stay high and not worry about studio time”.
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26. His House Was Party Central
John and Michelle’s estate became the ultimate party hotspot where the biggest stars in music and Hollywood mingled nightly. According to John, “We were too busy entrenching ourselves in opulence and hedonism” to think about tomorrow. Of course, he was the perfect host, ensuring mind-altering substances were available on every surface, and in vases and bowls around the house.
Inevitably, these substances ended up in the wrong hands with disastrous consequences…
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27. He Dog Was In Danger
Shh, don’t tell PETA, but even the Phillips’ pets partied hard. In his autobiography, John recounted how his golden retriever, Trelawny, once “gobbled up a bag of mescaline caps and ran in circles for three days without stopping”. The dog then sat in front of a mirror for 12 hours straight. According to Phillips, this trip transformed Trelawny, leaving him almost more human than dog.
The dog wasn’t the only one to stick his nose where it shouldn’t belong.
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28. He Didn’t Know Best
When his kids from his first marriage came to live with him, they soon discovered that anything goes. At 14, Jeffrey would sit around the pool snorting his brains out. Even 12-year-old Mackenzie wondered what it felt like to get high, and began dabbling in addictive substances herself—she even brought a stash to school. But this was only the tip of the iceberg.
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29. He Was Incredibly Cruel
Speaking of children, after John and Michelle’s daughter Chynna was born, Michelle suffered from postpartum depression. So what did John do? When the baby was only a month old, he took off with actress Mia Farrow, who was married to Frank Sinatra at the time. She was the perfect escape from his crumbling marriage and music career—at least until things got weird.
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30. He Acted Like A Randy Teen
John was crazy about Mia. One time they got high on mescaline and had a huge pillow fight. He shamelessly flaunted her all over town causing headlines to gleefully ask: “What does Papa John Have That Daddy Frankie Doesn’t?” Hmm. They would also hang out with her Hollywood friends, including Roman Polanski and his new wife Sharon Tate.
In a creepy twist of fate, Phillips came very close to being at Polanski and Tate’s Cielo Drive house one fateful night in August 1969…
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31. He Was Involved In A Hollywood Horror
Sharon Tate had invited Phillips over to hang with her friends but for some bizarre reason, he and a friend went to the beach to check out the phosphorescent plankton instead. The next morning, Phillips was stunned to learn that Tate and the others had been brutally slaughtered by intruders. Tate’s husband Polanski was so insane with grief that he started making some shocking accusations…
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32. He Had Bad Blood
Roman Polanski’s pregnant wife and friends had just been slaughtered and because the authorities hadn’t found the suspects, Polanski decided to take matters into his own hands. Number one on his suspect list? John Phillips. It wasn’t all that crazy of an accusation either, since Polanski had had an affair with Michelle earlier that year.
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33. He Had Motive
Polanski even went as far as sneaking around John’s garage looking for blood and fibers with a test kit and comparing John’s handwriting to the bloody writing on the wall at the scene. Everything eventually exploded one evening when Polanski grabbed Phillips, held a cleaver up to his neck, and asked him if he had done it.
Phillips’ calm reaction was enough to ease Polanski’s mind. Shortly afterward Charles Manson was apprehended.
34. His Life Was Unravelling
The world at large was pretty turbulent in 1969 and so was John Phillips’ life. In addition to being accused of mass slaughter, the Mamas & the Papas had disbanded, he had a new baby who was barely one year old, and he and Michelle divorced. As turbulent and adulterous as their relationship was, without his music and his muse, he began his downward spiral.
35. He Was A Jealous Guy
Although John and Michelle remained friends—and even lovers—after the divorce, it wasn’t quite the free and easy situation that it seemed. John would often drive past her house and see his childhood friend’s car in the driveway. He could no longer contain his jealousy and one night when he was out for drinks with Michelle, he exploded.
Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
36. He Was Terrifying
Things got tense at the bar, and when the pair got back to his house, their arguing intensified. In a wild rage, John smacked his ex-wife hard across the face. In return, she kicked him in the groin. He then knocked her across the bed with a closed fist and she slumped over and asked if he was trying to end her life. This snapped John out of his fury but he had gone way too far.
Michelle ended up in the hospital with multiple concussions and Phillps had dug himself even deeper into the abyss.
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37. He Was Not In A Good Place
It was make-it-or-break-it time for Phillips' solo career and his 1970 album just didn’t have that Mamas & Papas magic. Lost without his muse, Michelle, he ended up seeking inspiration elsewhere—namely, narcotics, except now instead of the fun party kind, it was the locked alone in a dark room kind. But wait, it gets even more depressing…
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38. He Was Broke And Burned Out
Phillips’ day of reckoning had arrived leaving him alone in his mansion, strung out and very broke. His solo album had failed, mind-altering substances weren’t cheap, he now had two ex-wives to support, and he owed close to a quarter of a million to the tax man. Thankfully, just as the darkness was taking over, a new muse entered his life.
Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
39. He Found A New Model
Phillips’ new lady was a 21-year-old South African model named Genevieve Waite. Fueled by piles of substances, the pair collaborated on a variety of beleaguered film and music projects, including an epic Broadway space opera that was such a spectacular failure that it closed after five nights. “I think the failure of the show broke John's heart,” Waite later said.
Eric Koch, CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons
40. He Started A New Chapter
The unconventional couple got married at a Chinese restaurant by a one-legged Buddhist priest and then moved to London in 1975. They lived just down the street from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones. After spending quite a bit of time with the British rockers, Waite and Phillips became addicted to the really hard stuff.
When he wasn’t getting high, Phillips was working on an album for the Stones’ record label. One song in particular was a little messed up, though…
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41. His Songs Were So Wrong
Art imitates life, but sometimes it works in reverse. Phillips wrote a song about his daughter Mackenzie called, “She’s Just 14”. To make matters worse, Phillips and Mick Jagger crooned lecherous lyrics like, “She always says / I’m just a sexy trash can”. Later that year, Phillips went on an errand so that Jagger could sleep with 18-year-old Mackenzie.
If only that was the worst of it…
42. He Was Set To Self-Destruct
By 1980, Phillips and Waite had two children, Tamerlane and Bijou, and lived in Connecticut, but that did not mean he was ready to settle down—in fact, the complete opposite was true. His addiction was so out of control that he became embroiled in a scheme where he traded purloined prescriptions with a pharmacist for medications that he would then swap with his dealer.
His lifestyle was not treating him well and according to his sister, “He looked like he belonged in a casket”.
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43. He Was Busted
In a surprise to no one, except maybe Phillips himself, he was caught by authorities and busted in July 1980. He used his charm to avoid serving time and claimed that the bust was the best thing that happened to him. It did scare him away from substances and right into the bottom of the bottle. His marriage started to fail and eventually so did his body…
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44. His Body Was Betraying Him
Not surprisingly, all of Phillips’ hard living was hard on his liver, and in 1992, it failed. Although he had a successful liver transplant, his health was never quite the same. One reason could have been because he didn’t quit drinking. Not even a year after his transplant, the National Enquirer published photos of him drinking at a bar.
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45. He Wasn’t Too Sick For Love
Just because he was not in the best health of his did not mean he could say no to a fourth marriage. Just a few years after his transplant, he married artist Farnaz Arrasteh. In March 2001, he had just finished recording a new album. It should have been a hopeful time, but just a few days later, he succumbed to heart failure at 65.
However, he wouldn’t rest in peace for very long…
Hallway Group, The Mamas & The Papas Story: Straight Shooter
46. He Pushed Boundaries
Anyone who has read Phillips’ autobiography Papa John knows that he was pretty blunt about who he was—warts and all. His childhood friend Bill Cleary said, “He had his own rules, and they were all meant to be broken…He wanted excess. To take it over the line”. Sadly there were several occasions where he took it way too far…
Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
47. His Daughter Shared Her Story
Tell-all autobiographies must run in the family because, in 2009, Phillips’ first daughter Mackenzie wrote one of her own. Titled High on Arrival, after a line in her father’s lecherous song about her “She’s Just 14,” the book contained some pretty explosive revelations and the most eye-opening one involved her father.
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48. His Daughter Rocked The World
When Mackenzie’s memoir came out, she went on The Oprah Winfrey Show to talk about it and her revelations sent the world reeling. She said that in 1979, at the age of 19, she woke up from a substance-induced stupor to find her father forcing himself upon her. To make matters worse, it wasn’t a one-time occurrence.
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49. He Couldn’t Defend Himself
According to Mackenzie, she and her father had an abusive and intimate relationship that lasted 10 years. Incidents would happen while the pair were under the influence of heavy substances and the pattern only stopped because Mackenzie became pregnant. Because she didn’t know if the baby’s father was her father or her husband, she had an abortion.
50. His Legacy Is Tainted
Mackenzie’s father paid for the abortion—it was the last straw. After that, she said, “I never let him touch me again”. Mackenzie’s revelations left the family in turmoil. Though John’s wives Michelle and Genevieve both denied the accusations, Michelle’s daughter Chynna believed them. Mackenzie revealed that she had forgiven him in 2001 just before he passed.
Phillips was not too far off when, in his autobiography, he compared his life to a “one-man Trail of Tears”.
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