Joe Jackson, the father of Michael Jackson and founder of the Jackson 5, passed away on Wednesday at 89, reports said.
Entertainment sites TMZ and ET said that Jackson died Wednesday morning in Los Angeles after a battle with cancer.
Jackson himself hinted at his impending death in a tweet two days ago.
"I have seen more sunsets than I have left to see. The sun rises when the time comes and whether you like it or not the sun sets when the time comes," he wrote.
A strict disciplinarian father of 11 children, the steel worker in Gary, Indiana turned into one of music history's most unlikely but most successful managers as he created The Jackson 5 from his family.
His most famous child, King of Pop Michael Jackson, would later break down in tears even as an adult when recalling his father beating him with his belt and, while publicly forgiving him, wrote him out of his will.
His other siblings would also allege physical abuse at their father's hands.
LaToya Jackson would go as far as to accuse him of sexual abuse in the early 1990s, when she was estranged from her entire family, but she later recanted. She and her father later reconciled.
By the time they were adults, most of the Jackson siblings had dismissed him as their manager; Michael and Joseph's relationship was famously fractured; Michael Jackson revered his mother Katherine but kept his distance from Joseph.
However, during some of his son's most difficult times, including his 2004 molestation trial, Joseph was by his side, and Michael acknowledged their complicated relationship in a 2001 speech about healthy relationships between parents and their children:
"I have begun to see that even my father's harshness was a kind of love, an imperfect love, to be sure, but love nonetheless. He pushed me because he loved me. Because he wanted no man ever to look down at his offspring," he said. "And now with time, rather than bitterness, I feel blessing. In the place of anger, I have found absolution. And in the place of revenge I have found reconciliation. And my initial fury has slowly given way to forgiveness."
Joe Jackson was a guitarist who put his own musical ambitions aside to work in the steel mills to support his wife and children.
But he far surpassed his own dreams through his children, particularly his exceptionally gifted seventh child, Michael. Fronted by the then-pint-sized wonder and brothers Jermaine, Marlon, Tito and Jackie, the Jackson 5 was an instant sensation in 1969 and became the first phase of superstardom for the Jackson family.
Over the following decades, millions would listen to both group and solo recordings by the Jackson 5 (who later became known as The Jacksons) and Michael would become one of the most popular entertainers in history.
Michael Jackson's estate released a statement mourning the death.
"We are deeply saddened by Mr. Jackson's passing and extend our heartfelt condolences to Mrs. Katherine Jackson and the family. Joe was a strong man who acknowledged his own imperfections and heroically delivered his sons and daughters from the steel mills of Gary, Indiana to worldwide pop superstardom," said John Branca and John McClain, co-executors of the estate.
