Janet Jackson

Review: Janet Jackson Finally Reveals the Story of Her “Secret” Child in Disarming, Well Told Documentary

by Roger Friedman - January 27, 2022 3:05 pm

Janet Jackson — if you didn’t already love her, you really will after you watch the A&E documentary set for Friday and Saturday night.

The doc is in four parts, two parts each night. The press only received the Friday pieces. I think they’re holding the Saturday stuff for real time review because it includes info about the Justin Timberlake Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction.

The real meat of the Friday night episodes is all about Janet’s private life– her first two marriages, and the story of her “secret” child.

No surprise here: there was no secret child. But rumors have always followed Janet that she gave birth to a child fathered by first husband James DeBarge. It wasn’t true, Janet assures us, and so does her sister Rebbie (pronounced Reebie).

What we do get from the Friday night segments are Janet unplugged, especially candid about her late father, Joseph, who was physically abusive and “mean” to all the kids. He drove them to stardom by being unsparing. Eventually they all left him, and he spent the rest of his life trying to get back in. In rare home videos and long unseen interviews, the look of unhappiness on all the kids’ faces when they were young and his sway is shocking. It’s no wonder things worked out so badly for Michael, and for many of the others.

Janet says she really didn’t want to be a performer or singer. She says she wanted to go to Pepperdine University and study business law. Her father simply told her that wasn’t happening, and she would go straight in the family business.

What’s clear if you know the Jacksons’ story is that Janet wanted to get out that house in Encino ASAP. Sister Rebbie left at 18 to get married and have kids. Janet was trapped by the business. But she did a similar thing. At 16, she married James DeBarge to get away from her father. The problem, she says, was that DeBarge was using drugs starting on their honeymoon when he disappeared on the first night. It only got worse from there. And as she she indicates tearfully, she was really in love with him. Their marriage only lasted a year. (I don’t know why anyone thought she could have fit a pregnancy and childbirth in there, too.)

Janet’s second marriage, to Rene Elizondo Jr, is in the second part of Friday’s showing. We won’t find out until Saturday why that marriage fell apart, but it’s interesting that both of the marriages had elopements or secret weddings. Janet wanted to make sure her father didn’t derail her plans. The second part on Friday night also chronicles the making of her “Control” album with the ever affable Jimmy Jam Harris and Terry Lewis. So far unmentioned in this part of the saga is John McClain, a family friend who was working at A&M Records and guided Janet’s recording career. He is now the co-executor of Michael Jackson’s estate.

As far as Michael Jackson goes, there’s some nice home movie footage. Janet concedes that their close relationship fractured after “Thriller.” And Michael was not much help in launching her career. Indeed, Michael– as Bob Jones outlined in his book (whether fans like it or not) — did not want his brothers and sisters to succeed. That Janet did is really her greatest triumph.


https://www.showbiz411.com/2022/01/27/review-janet-jackson-finally-reveals-the-story-of-her-secret-child-in-disarming-well-told-documentary

Janet Jackson opens up about being body-shamed by brother Michael: ‘It affects you’

The singer made the revelation in a four-part documentary series, which has been many years in the making.

Body image issues have plagued many people around the world, and in the recent past, many celebrities have talked about it so as to normalise conversations surrounding it. Janet Jackson is among them. The American singer-songwriter, in a new documentary, revealed that she was bullied by her brother Michael Jackson.

According to a report in The Sun, the 55-year-old said she began to experience body image issues when she was 11 and all through her teenage years, because her brother would fat-shame her.

“There were times when Mike used to tease me and call me names… ‘Pig, horse, slaughter hog, cow’. He would laugh about it and I’d laugh, too, but then there was somewhere down inside that it would hurt. When you have somebody say you’re too heavy, it affects you,” she was quoted as saying.

The singer made the shocking revelation in a four-part documentary series, which has been many years in the making. In it — the report states — the singer has also revealed that she is “an emotional eater”. “So, when I get stressed or something is really bothering me, it comforts me.”

It was during her role as an abandoned girl Penny on the US sitcom Good Times that she began to experience “weight issues and the way I looked at myself”. “I was developing at a very young age and I started getting a chest and they would bind it so I would look more flat-chested.”

In addition to this, in an interview with Allure, Jackson said she had tried to cultivate body confidence, and that her 1993 album ‘Janet‘ was when she “reconsidered modesty”.


For the cover, she was topless, and the singer shared with the outlet that it was “an affirmation of control”, and about “about embracing me and trying to learn to love me for me, my body, all of that. Trying to feel comfortable in embracing that. Throwing myself in the lion’s den. Just going for it, wanting to do something different.”

https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/life-style/janet-jackson-body-image-shaming-brother-michael-jackson-7742919/

A pic of Lisa Marie's daughter, Riley and Michael on table at MJ's apartment  in Janet's documentary.

10 things we learned about Michael from the Janet Jackson documentary
February 1, 2022

When the notoriously private Janet Jackson revealed that she had been working on a documentary about her life and career for the past 5 years, we knew they’d be a lot to cover. Part of music’s most recognisable and successful family ensured that Janet was born into a legacy and the expectation to become somebody significant weighed heavy on her shoulders from such a young age. But she managed to carve her own path to success and lay the foundation for other artists to follow, becoming one of the most decorated and charted females in music history.

For many of us in the MJ community, we’ve also grown up loving Janet too and knowing of the close bond they shared, we watched with intrigue to see what she might have to say about Michael. 

And she didn’t disappoint! Through rare footage, unseen photos and candid accounts, Janet’s documentary added more pieces to the Michael Jackson story. And as we’re a Michael Jackson fansite, we thought you might enjoy this snapshot of moments from the 4-hour special. So, here are the top 10 things we learned about Michael from the Janet Jackson Documentary: 

[list="vertical-align: middle; box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-bottom: 26px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Rubik !important; text-transform: capitalize !important;"][*]Michael, Marlon and Randy all shared the middle bunk in 2300 Jackson Street.
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While giving Janet a tour of the family’s first home in Gary Indiana, brother Randy revealed that all 6 brothers shared one small bedroom. A triple bunk bed adorned one wall with Michael, Marlon and Randy all piling into the middle bunk. “The three of you slept in one bunk bed?” Janet asked and Randy replied, “Yeah, in one bed and Marlon and Michael used to pee on me!”


Janet recalled fondly “We were close, Randy, Myself and Mike – we were like the three amigos – the three stooges” 


As Janet shares her memories of lavish parties at the family compound after they moved to Encino, Randy recalls a time that David Bowie, then in his 20s attended one of the infamous parties and proceeded to offer a young Michael and Randy something to get “high”, to which the wise brother both declined. 


An archive interview with Janet shows advice Michael shared with her if she was to succeed in the entertainment industry – She shared “Michael has always told me three things – That’s to always practice, to never give up and to have self-confidence if I want to make it.”


In a rare, exciting glimpse into the writing process for ‘Scream’, we see Michael and Janet sitting in Michael’s hotel room in New York in 1994 (mistakenly credited as 1993). As Janet types on the laptop, Michael shares his lyrics for the first verse: 

“I’m tired of injustice, I’m tired of the schemes, Your lies are disgusting, so what does it mean. When kicking me down, I’ve got to get up, as bad as it sounds, the whole system…”



“Is fucked” Janet interjects. Michael laughs and replies “I can’t say that.”  He then joked that their mother, Katherine, would not approve of the song – “Mother’s gonna love us with this song, I told you not to do this Janet, but you insisted, you tied my hands behind my back. I did not want to do a song like this.” Michael says mocking and laughing. 

During the breakaway Janet affirms, “It was his song and I wanted to be there to help him in any way I could”. The cut back to the hotel room shows Michael sharing with Janet his vision for her delivery “For your first line, when you come in, people are going to be waiting for you…you kill it…angry, with fire, you know what I mean. That’s what it’s gotta be…the boom! It’s got to have passion and fire in it…With that voice that you did with Black Cat. You know what I mean, Fire!”
The last time Michael and Janet saw each other was at the surprise party for Katherine and Joe with all the family in attendance. Janet shares: “He was sitting next to me, and he was laughing like crazy and he had that deep laugh and I remember him looking over at me…and the last thing we said to each other was I Love You and that was the last time I saw him.”
While in Las Vegas, Janet took a detour to Palomino Hacienda, one of Michael’s former homes in the city that never sleeps. As she looks from the window of her vehicle, she recalls how she and her brothers met Michael there in 2007 in the theatre to discuss a reunion tour. As part of the suggestion, Janet offered to be the opening act for the show to further bolster the excitement. However, she revealed that Michael met the project with a muted response. But she also shared “We had to show him that we were there for him and that we’ll always love him.”  
[list=10][*]The people around Michael in the later years seemingly put distance between him and the family. 
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Perhaps less a point we learned, and more a point re-affirmed. Janet reveals that several figures in Michael’s life during his final years seemed to be asserting control over him. “He had people that were around him for a long time, that still, those people separated him from his family and that’s when things started to really shift.”
As such an important figure in her life, we see throughout the documentary the impact that Michael’s life and career had on Janet as she elevated to superstar status, as well as Michael’s passing and parts of the narrative of the documentary run in parallel to Michael’s world. A heartbreaking moment sees matriarch Katherine Jackson become emotional when asked if she was able to speak about the loss of her son. “I can’t,” she says through tears, showing how the pain of losing her child has never eased. 
Though fragments in a bigger picture, Janet’s documentary offered us a small window into moments in Michael’s world, through the eyes of his little sister and we’re so grateful for her opening up and sharing these moments with us as Michael’s fans.

By Pez Jax.
https://www.mjvibe.com/10-things-we-learned-about-michael-from-the-janet-jackson-documentary/