Laura Mackenzie Phillips (born November 10, 1959) is an American actress and singer best known for her roles in American Graffiti and as rebellious teenager Julie Mora Cooper Horvath on the sitcom One Day at a Time. She is more recently known for her role in the Disney Channel science fiction show So Weird.

Biography

Phillips has been married twice: first to rock group manager Jeffrey Sessler, son of Freddie Sessler (from 1979 to 1981) and to rock guitarist Michael Barakan – now known professionally as Shane Fontayne (from 1996 to 2000). She has one child, a son, Shane Barakan (born 1987), a musician.


Substance abuse and arrest
Phillips has had a lifetime troubled by drug abuse. On August 27, 2008, she was arrested by the Los Angeles Airport Police on charges of possession of cocaine and heroin after she went through airport security screening. On October 31, 2008, she pleaded guilty to one felony count of cocaine possession, and was sentenced to a drug rehabilitation program. Phillips' drug case was dismissed after she successfully completed a drug diversion program.

She appeared on the third season of Celebrity Rehab, which aired in January and February 2010. She later discussed her recovery on the March 17, 2010, episode of The View.


Allegations of sexual relationship with father
In September 2009, Phillips's memoir High on Arrival was released, after which she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show for an hour-long interview. She told Winfrey that she first tried cocaine when she was 11 years old, and that her father had taken drugs with her, and had also injected her with cocaine.

During the interview, Phillips read excerpts from her book. She said that at the age of 19, on the night before her first wedding, "I woke up that night from a blackout to find myself having sex with my own father." In a later article in People magazine, she adds that she was under the influence of drugs provided by her father. Phillips then told Winfrey, "It became a consensual relationship," describing her participation as "sort of Stockholm Syndrome, where you begin to love your captor."

She later reconsidered her characterization that it was a consensual relationship. In an interview on HLN's The Joy Behar Show, she said: "As I was writing the book, I thought, this word, it kept sitting wrong with me. But I used it for lack of a better word. Since then, I've been schooled by thousands of incest survivors all across the world that there really is no such thing as consensual incest due to the inherent power a parent has over a child. So, I wouldn't necessarily call it a consensual relationship at this time."

Phillips said the relationship had happened gradually for ten years, and that she ended it when she became pregnant and did not know who had fathered the child. She stated that her father paid for her to have an abortion, "and I never let him touch me again."

Geneviève Waïte, John's wife at the time MacKenzie claimed the incest first began, denies the allegations, saying they were inconsistent with his character. Michelle Phillips, John's second wife, also stated that she had "every reason to believe [Mackenzie's account is] untrue."

Chynna Phillips, Mackenzie's half-sister and Michelle Phillips' daughter, stated that she believed Mackenzie's claims and that Mackenzie first told her about the relationship during a phone conversation in 1997, approximately 11 years after the supposed relationship had ended.
Bijou Phillips (whose mother is Geneviève Waïte, as opposed to Mackenzie's mother Susan Adams, and Chynna's mother Michelle Phillips), Mackenzie's other half-sister, said in a statement that Mackenzie had informed her of the relationship when Bijou was 13 years old, but also stated, "I'm 29 now, I've talked to everyone who was around during that time, I've asked the hard questions. I do not believe my sister. Our father is many things; this is not one of them." Jessica Woods, daughter of Denny Doherty, said that her father had told her that he knew of the relationship.

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