Last surviving Mamas & the Papas member opens up about band’s dark history

Michelle Phillips, 78, speaks about the melodrama that plagued the 1960s folk-rock group’s and contributed to their eventual breakup

Michelle Phillips, the lone survivor of 1960s Mamas & the Papas has opened up about the band’s dark history.

Formed in 1965, the four-piece folk-rock group – comprised of Michelle, John Phillips, Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty, and best known for their hits “California Dreamin’” and “Monday, Monday” – shared a wealth of melodrama that would eventually contribute to their 1968 breakup.

In a wide-ranging new interview with Rolling Stone, 78-year-old Michelle revealed new truths about the band’s dramatic love quadrangle, her former marriage with John and his alleged incestuous relationship with daughter Mackenzie – whom he shared with his first wife Susan Adams.

After meeting years before the band’s establishment, John and Michelle got married. However, later during the group’s active years, she engaged in an affair with Doherty.

“John didn’t actually find us having sex, but he did come downstairs, and I was sitting on Denny’s bed in my nightgown, feeding him candies,” Michelle explained. “He said, ‘You could do a lot of things to me, Mich, but you don’t f*** my tenor.’”

Meanwhile, John had affairs with multiple women. “He wrote that song ‘Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon’,” Michelle said. “I used to say to him, ‘Yeah, John, and you’ve f***ed them all’.”

(L-R) Owen Elliot, with band members Michelle Phillips, Denny Doherty and John Phillips (AFP via Getty Images)

As the last standing member following the early death of Elliot in 1974, then John in 2001 and Doherty in 2007, Michelle revealed her plans to develop a biopic.

“Mercifully, John is dead. So he can’t stand in the way of me doing it, and neither can Denny,” she said. “Once you’ve taken the knife out of your heart, it makes for a wonderful story.”

She added: “We’re going to get this movie made, come hell or high water.”

One of the most damning controversies to have emerged in Mackenzie’s 2009 book High on Arrival, was that she alleged she had been raped aged 20 by her father, John.

Mackenzie then wrote that it evolved into a consensual incestuous 10-year relationship.

“Frankly, I do not believe it,” Michelle admitted, later backtracking, saying: “I’m not going to say whether it’s true or not, because I don’t think she knows if it’s true or not.”

Michelle Phillips (Getty Images for Film Independen)

In a statement to Rolling Stone, Mackenzie wrote: “I stand by my truth as I always have and as I always will.

“Plus which, who on Earth would fabricate such a story as mine? To what end? It’s not exactly a résumé builder, for God’s sake... [High on Arrival] is true, and it was my story to tell. If I had to live it, I had the right to tell it.”

This article was amended on 17 October 2022. One of the photographic captions previously referred incorrectly to Cass Elliot when it was in fact her daughter, Owen .