Mackenzie Phillips on Oprah

Mackenzie Phillips on Oprah

Mackenzie Phillips on 'Oprah': I had abortion after incest; stepmom Michelle calls her liar In the wake of Mackenzie Phillips' bombshell allegation that she had an incestuous relationship with her father, her stepmother, Michelle, is accusing her of lying, according to the Hollywood Reporter. More details of Mackenzie's story came to light as her full interview with Oprah Winfrey aired Wednesday, including that she became pregnant and had an abortion. She was uncertain whether the baby was by her father or her husband, who had no idea she was having an incestuous affair.

While her father, John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, raped her the first time they had sex, the relationship later became consensual, she said, and went on for nearly a decade. Michelle Phillips, John's ex-wife and Mackenzie's stepmother, denied the story in an exclusive interview with Roger Friedman for the Hollywood Reporter's Showbiz 411 blog. She told Friedman that in 1997, Mackenzie told everyone in their extended family that she and John Phillips had a sexual relationship, including Michelle.

"She told me, then she called me back and said, 'You know I'm joking,' " Michelle said. She continued, "I said it wasn't funny. Mackenzie said, 'I guess we have different senses of humor.' " Mackenzie is John's child from his marriage to heiress Susan Adams. He wed Michelle Phillips in 1962. Mackenzie's sister, Chynna, had the opposite reaction to Mackenzie's revelation. "Somebody could have dropped a piano on my head and I probably wouldn't have felt it," she told Us Weekly of her reaction to a phone call from her sister, also in 1997. "But I knew it was true. I mean, who in their right mind would make such a claim if it wasn't true?" In that instance, Mackenzie did not say her story was a joke.