For five years, Janet Jackson has been filming a documentary, preparing to share her accounts of the most intimate — and the most widely reported-on — moments of her life.
In “Janet,” which aired its first part on Friday and continues on Saturday on Lifetime and A&E, the groundbreaking and private singer digs into everything from her childhood as the youngest in the Jackson family to long-held rumors that she had a secret baby in the 80’s to her relationship with her brother, the late Michael Jackson.
“I wanted my own identity, but at that time, my father was in change of my life and my career and he was my manager. So, there were things I wanted to do and just a direction that I wanted to go in,” Jackson said in the documentary, discussing her decision to part ways with her father, Joe Jackson, who managed the early days of her career. It was then that she came out with “Control,” the 1986 album that began her journey to superstardom as one of the most iconic pop stars of all time.
“It’s hard to say no to my father. In order to do things I wanted to do, I guess he would have to be out of my picture,” Jackson said through tears. “I knew that I had to take control of my own life. I wanted my own identity. I wanted to go on my own… I had to make it happen, at that point.”
Here are the biggest revelations — so far — from Janet Jackson’s documentary:
Janet’s relationship with her father, Joe Jackson, was complex. But she is clearing the air.
The Jackson patriarch, who died in 2018, was a notoriously tough figure, who has been accused by his children — including daughters Rebbie and La Toya — of physical, mental and sexual abuse. In the doc, it appears Janet wants to clear her father’s name.
“It was because of my father I’ve had the career that I’ve had. It was tough at times. There was nothing easy about it, period. But when you see where we came from and where we are now, we owe so much to my father,” she said.
“Discipline without love is tyranny — and tyrants, they were not,” she said of her parents, Joe and Katherine, who, now 91, also appears in the doc. “They just loved us and wanted us to be the best we could be. Obviously, it worked.”
David Bowie offered a young Michael Jackson drugs.
After The Jackson 5 had garnered stardom, the family moved from Gary, Ind. to the affluent, white suburb of Encino, Calif. Parties were hosted at the Jackson family home and the young singers and their father, Joe Jackson, would welcome the likes of famed celebrities, such as David Bowie.
At one party, Randy Jackson claims, on-camera, that Bowie offered him and his brother Michael drugs.
“Michael and I are sitting in one of the other rooms away from the party,” said Randy Jackson. “So Bowie walks in and… he offered us some of what he was doing to get high… We just looked at each other. We were like, ‘No.’ We didn’t know what it was, but it was like, ‘Nah, no thank you.’”
Janet wanted to go to college to study law, instead of pursuing a career as a singer.
“None of us had a normal childhood. My friends, they went to gymnastics class or were part of the Girl Scouts or Brownies. I wanted to do those things. But yet, we had to go to work,” Janet said of her early days.
“I wanted to go to college and study business law, and [Joe Jackson] said that’s not going to happen.” With a slight laugh, Jackson added, “What parent doesn’t want you to go to college? But he said, ‘No, you’re going to sing.’”
She continued, “I would’ve liked to experience staying at a dorm, being around other kids. But I was very, very naive, very shy, not worldly at all.”
Michael began to change with the success of “Thriller.”
“That’s when it all started changing,” Janet Jackson said, recalling the time that her brother’s hit 1982 album, “Thriller,” was released.
“For the first time in my life, that’s when I felt it was different between the two of us, that a shift was happening,” she added. “That’s the time where Mike and I started kind of going our separate ways. We weren’t as close.”
Janet did not want to join the show “Fame.”
After starring as a teen on “Diff’rent Strokes” and “Good Times” in the late 70’s and early 80’s, Jackson joined the fourth season of the legendary Debbie Allen series “Fame” — but she never wanted to be part of the show.
“My father wanted me to join ‘Fame.’ I didn’t want to be on ‘Fame.’ I didn’t want to do the show,” Jackson shared. “I did it for my father.”
As for “Good Times,” creator Norman Lear sat down for the doc to praise the young Jackson’s acting chops. “The talent was abundant and clear,” Lear said of the first time he met her, adding that the role “required a serious performer.”
Janet shut down decades-long rumors that she had a secret baby.
In the 80’s, rumors exploded that Jackson had a secret baby with her first husband, singer James DeBarge. The tabloid story lit up headlines and newscasts — and hurt the pop star deeply, she reveals.
“Back in the day, they were saying that I had a child and I kept it secret,” Jackson said through tears.
Her “Fame” co-star, Allen, speaks in the doc and recalls that rumors were flying around like wildfire at the time of the show.
“When I was doing ‘Fame,’ a lot of the kids thought I was pregnant because I had gained weight and I was taking birth control pills… so, that rumor started going around,” Jackson says. “I could never keep a child away from James. How could I keep a child from their father? I could never do that. That’s not right.”
In the doc, Jackson goes into great detail about her short-lived marriage and annulment with DeBarge. She says that his drug use came as a shock to her naive self and was the reason for the relationship ending.
Janet’s first album was not in her control at all.
The singer’s first album was released in 1982, but Jackson says it was not the music she wanted to create.
“It was really about their album, the kind of music that they wanted me to make. I didn’t write any of the material. It was just a matter of going to the studio [and] doing what they wanted you to do,” she recalls of recording her first music, which was largely R&B instead of pop.
“I didn’t want my last name to be on the album. I just wanted to go by my first name,” Jackson says. (The self-titled album was called “Janet Jackson.”)
“I wanted them to accept me for me, to be interested in this for me — not because I was the brother or sister,” she continues. “But that’s everything that this industry takes advantage of and they want to play on that.”
Jackson explains that 1986’s “Control” was the first album to truly come from her, which is when she began to take her life into her own hands and define herself as the artist she wanted to be: a revolutionary pop star. Then, “Rhythm Nation” in 1989 is when she began to write about causes she deeply cared about, despite what others might think, delivering music about social justice and racial issues.
Janet wanted to get out of Michael Jackson’s shadow, though the media made that difficult.
“It was inevitable, I guess, but she never was able to really escape it, even with all the success she was having,” her producer Jimmy Jam says in the doc, speaking about the time when Jackson had become a mega pop star with the success of “Rhythm Nation” in the mid ’80s. “I never heard her say, ‘I want to beat Michael,’” the producer adds. “But the competition, to me, was more within herself to do the best that she could do.”
“When you have the last name Jackson, there is a certain microscope that they want to use with that,” Jackson said somberly, reflecting on the press attention she’s always been bombarded with over the years.
“I’m thankful, I really am. Because it has opened up a great deal of doors for me, having that name,” she continues. “At the same time, there is a great deal of scrutiny that comes with having that last name — a certain expectation. I wanted my own identity. I didn’t want people to pick up this body of music because of my last name.”
This story will be updated after the ending of “Janet” airs on Saturday evening.