CHARACTER
The Many Lives of Mama Loveby Lara Love Hardin

DJ Jackson

DJ Jackson

Quick Facts

  • Role: Second husband of Lara Love Hardin; father of Kaden Love Jackson; Lara’s codefendant
  • First appearance: Early in the memoir (Chapter 2)
  • Core function: Charismatic enabler and catalyst who accelerates Lara’s slide into heroin use and criminal activity
  • Key themes: Addiction and Escape, codependency, denial, accountability
  • Status by the epilogue: Reportedly sober and an ultra-endurance runner—an off-page transformation after he and Lara separate

Who They Are

Bold and performative on the surface, DJ Jackson is the partner who turns Lara’s rekindled sobriety into a shared delusion: that love and heroin can sustain a life together. He introduces her to smoking heroin, then escalates their use into a daily ritual, fusing romance with relapse. In the story’s moral architecture, DJ personifies Addiction and Escape: alluring, fast-moving, and ultimately corrosive. His early grand gestures disguise a deeper pattern of manipulation, self-preservation, and refusal to accept consequences—a pattern that forces Lara to choose between him and the possibility of reclaiming her life and children.

Personality & Traits

DJ’s persona is a pendulum: charming and grand one moment, hard-edged and angry the next. The book gives few static physical details, focusing instead on how addiction remakes his face—“tiny pinpricks” for pupils (Chapter 2), a “harder” jaw and “meaner” look after arrest (Chapter 4), and a shaved head post-jail (Chapter 14), all signaling the progressive armor of denial.

  • Manipulative enabler: He sells drug use as intimacy—“Who takes care of you?”—and reframes errands as play (“Go provide... while I get shelter,” Chapter 2), yoking love to using so that saying no feels like betrayal.
  • Selfish, short-horizon decision-maker: He uses before bringing heroin to Lara (Chapter 2), abandons her during the arrest and after his bailout (Chapters 3, 9), and leaves her with restitution after exiting probation early (Chapter 15). His choices consistently protect his comfort, not his family.
  • Angry and defensive: When challenged, he attacks—“Fuck them,” about former friends (Chapter 4)—and rages against bail terms and court authority, deflecting responsibility onto a hostile world.
  • Reckless and impulsive: He proposes fleeing to Costa Rica on a whim (Chapter 8) and injects Lara in a public parking lot right after bail (Chapter 10), demonstrating a thrill-seeking logic that trumps legality and safety.
  • Superficial charm masking rot: Early “over-the-top” gestures—like redecorating Lara’s bedroom (Chapter 8)—stage an idealized intimacy that cannot survive the real demands of parenting, probation, or sobriety.

Character Journey

DJ’s arc is a descent into a hardened identity. He begins as a man in shaky recovery who relapses and rebrands that relapse as romance. Jail doesn’t sober him; it confirms his grievance-driven worldview and amplifies his “homeboy” persona (Chapters 8, 13). Once out, he escalates to IV use, torpedoes his drug tests, and detonates their housing stability (Chapter 14). His off-page sobriety in the epilogue reads less as redemption in this narrative than as a coda—arriving after Lara has already saved herself without him. In the book we read, his “development” is regression: a shedding of responsibility until Lara refuses to carry it for him.

Key Relationships

  • Lara Love Hardin: Their relationship is a closed circuit: love justifies using; using justifies crime; crime tightens the bond against an outside world that “doesn’t understand.” When Lara finally prioritizes reunification with her children over DJ, she converts their shared denial into accountability, initiating her movement toward Redemption and Healing.
  • Kaden Love Jackson: Kaden is the “second-marriage baby glue” (Chapter 2) that initially makes their blended family feel plausible. DJ’s love for his son is real but repeatedly overridden by immediate cravings: he fails to call for months after arrest and misses Kaden’s birthday, revealing affection without reliability.
  • His mother (Carol): A crucial enabler, she interrupts consequences—bailing DJ out while leaving Lara in jail, extending money and sympathy, and blaming Lara for his choices. Her protection allows DJ to preserve his self-image and postpone responsibility.
  • Bryan Love: DJ’s resentment of Lara’s ex intensifies when Kaden is placed with Bryan after the arrest. He refuses contact—even to speak with his own son (Chapter 14)—letting anger separate him further from fatherhood.

Defining Moments

DJ’s most telling actions happen under pressure; each one exposes his hierarchy of priorities.

  • The police raid (Chapter 3): He hands Lara drugs to hide and stuffs his own into the couch, choosing evidence management over family protection. Why it matters: even in crisis, he treats Lara as an accessory to his habit, not a partner to safeguard.
  • Bailout and abandonment (Chapter 9): Freed by his mother, he leaves Lara behind, doesn’t fund her jail account, and doesn’t call Kaden. Why it matters: this is codependency without reciprocity—he expects care, offers none, and lets others absorb his fallout.
  • The IHOP relapse (Chapter 10): Immediately post-bail, he injects Lara in a parking lot with a stolen biopsy needle, violating bail. Why it matters: he prioritizes the ritual of shared using over freedom, safety, and their son; intimacy is fused with risk and rule-breaking.
  • The final confrontation (Chapter 14): After failing a drug test, he’s caught snorting crushed antidepressants in their new apartment; when Lara evicts him, he erupts, blaming her for ending the marriage. Why it matters: the scene converts Lara’s private doubt into public boundary-setting—the point where her recovery requires his absence.

Essential Quotes

“Who takes care of you?” — DJ Jackson, Chapter 2
This refrain sells control as comfort. By casting himself as caretaker, DJ reframes enabling as love, making refusal feel like ingratitude and binding Lara’s need for safety to his presence and, therefore, to using.

“Handle your business while we play.” — DJ Jackson, Chapter 2
The euphemistic “play” collapses crime and intimacy into a shared game. The line shows how DJ turns risk into romance, translating practical necessities (money, drugs) into couplehood rituals.

“We aren’t saying anything, this is all bullshit!” — DJ Jackson, Chapter 3
In the face of arrest, he defaults to bravado and collective defiance—“we”—to deny consequences. The posture is protective in tone but ultimately self-serving, urging silence that shields him while exposing Lara to equal risk.

“Gotta go. I love you, homegirl.” — DJ Jackson, Chapter 9
The sign-off follows his bailout that leaves Lara in jail. Affectionate slang functions as a smokescreen; the warmth of “love” masks the coldness of abandonment, revealing how language cushions—but doesn’t change—his choices.

“You hypocrite. You’re just looking for a way out of this marriage. You’re making a huge mistake, you heartless bitch!” — DJ Jackson, Chapter 14
When confronted with boundaries, DJ attacks character rather than behavior. The accusation flips responsibility onto Lara, a classic deflection that underscores why separation becomes the precondition of her recovery.