Michael Jackson’s daughter, Paris, has been going through some ups and downs lately, as she tries to navigate through this thing called life without having the loving guidance of her father to lean on.

Just a few weeks ago, we watched her go to her Instagram page to relentlessly put some fans in their places over her Daddy and her lifestyle. She has since deleted her IG rant, but it was during her rant that she also revealed there was truth to the rumors that had been circulating about her having an addiction of some sort, when she stated that she has ‘AA meetings to go to.’ Then earlier this week we saw her make a bold move when she took to Instagram to debut her new makeover, rockin’ her fly, orange hued short ‘do.

But after overcoming her personal battles with alcohol, Paris, who is still 17 years old (she’ll be 18 on April 3rd) has now made it a point to go out in public view, displaying her new habit of cigarette smoking.  She was seen yesterday putting her smoking skills on blast for everyone to see and she could care less what anyone thought about it. See pics of her chillin’ with her friend, taking a few puffs below…

Like we said, Paris has had many ups and downs in recent years, as she is forced to grow up in the public’s eye. Her admitting to being in Alcoholic’s Anonymous wasn’t the first issue she’s dealt with publicly. If you recall, in 2012 we all painfully  watched the home surveillance footage outside of Katherine Jackson’s home, when Paris appeared to be have a confrontation with her aunt Janet and her uncle Randy outside. In 2013, there were also rumors that Paris had allegedly attempted suicide by cutting her wrists and allegedly overdosing on pills, which then allegedly resulted in her attending a $10million therapeutic academy in Utah.

The bottom line is that while it may be easy for many of us to sit on the outside and judge Paris’ actions, she is at the age and the phase of life that many of us can actually relate to and that is when we try to define our identity and figure out who we really are as we approach adulthood. It just so happens to be that Paris lives a much more fast paced lifestyle than us regular folks, due to her family’s legacy and wealth. Therefore her experimentation with finding herself is the equivalent of an average person’s journey times one-hundred.

We’ve seen this more extreme form of growing up happen with many children of very successful celeb’s like Nicole Richie (Lionel Richie’s daughter), Chaka Khan’s son, and many more.

So Paris’ new smoking habit doesn’t necessarily warrant any judgement, but moreso simply just a quest to understand the vast amount of changes we’ve been witnessing her go through and having to do so in such a huge spotlight. Unfortunately Paris and her siblings do not have the luxury to screw up in private, that we all had. We wish her the best.