We Finally Know Why Paris Jackson & Justin Long Split: 'Not A Reason To Stay'

Paris Jackson's engagement to producer Justin Long ended back in 2025, a few months after she announced their engagement on Instagram in December 2024. Granted, she didn't initially share that with the world. In fact, it was only after Daily Mail shared pictures of her crying and linked it to her late father Michael Jackson's passing that she addressed it. "[T]hose are breakup tears," she clarified on X in late July 2025. Other than that, Paris didn't speak publicly about the split again. That was, until she appeared on "Call Her Daddy" in August 2026.

"It was a choice that I needed to make to be happy," Jackson began, adding later that she had considered splitting up for a while before she and Long officially ended their engagement. "There were times where I did try and end it, but there was this little voice being like, 'What if, however long down the line ... ' And this is a voice that a lot of us have, of, 'If I had just hung in there a little bit longer, it would have gotten better,'" she told "Call Her Daddy" host Alex Cooper. Because of that, she added, she stayed in the relationship for longer than she probably should have, and even admitted to asking friends, therapists, and psychologists alike what they thought. Paris shared that reasons to stay in the relationship kept coming up, "And my answers weren't good enough." 

It's worth noting that Paris didn't say anything bad about Long on "Call Her Daddy." That said, she explained, "Just because someone is a good person, doesn't mean they're my person ... if these big, major needs are not being met, it doesn't matter that you're a good person and you're not going to cheat on me, that's not a reason to stay."

Later on in the "Call Her Daddy" podcast, Paris Jackson elaborated on her fear of infidelity being one of the reasons she'd stayed in her relationship with Justin Long as long as she had. However, realizing that so many of the men she knew were in faithful relationships changed that. "This isn't the one and only person that's not gonna do that to me," she said. As a result, she joked that she'd accepted, "I can be a little bit pickier. You know, the bar can be raised a bit, 'cause it's historically been very low." 

Sure enough, Paris has had a complicated love life over the years, and as she'd pointed out elsewhere on "Call Her Daddy," she'd even been engaged before. Paris didn't name names, though, and also said that it was before she'd turned her life around. "Even though we were strung out on drugs and the ring was one that he bought with my money without me knowing," she quipped. "The love was so real for me."

While it's always sad when a relationship ends, it certainly seems as though Paris calling off her engagement to Long was for the best, and we're hoping both of them find their person when the time is right. 

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