Janet Jackson’s heartfelt revelations from a crowded ‘Lifetime’

Mumbai, Jan. 30 (IANS): Actress and singer Janet Jackson has made some startling revelations in her recently released documentary ‘Janet’, which aired on the Lifetime and A&E networks in the United States.

The documentary, which had been in the making for five years, speaks about the many controversies that clouded the singer’s life, reports ‘Variety’.

In the documentary, Jackson addresses the infamous 2004 Super Bowl, dubbed by the media as ‘Nipplegate’, where during her mid-performance with Justin Timberlake of ‘Rock Your Body’, a part of Jackson’s top came off.

Post the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXVIII, which was broadcast live on February 1, 2004, on the CBS television network, Janet was blacklisted from the industry under the direction of Les Moonves, then-CEO of CBS Corporation.This led to her reduced radio airplay, televised promotion and sales figures. Jackson was publicly shamed and her career took a hit.

Jackson, according to ‘Variety’, revealed in the documentary that she told Timberlake not to put out a statement about the incident at the time.

In the documentary, while talking to her brother Randy, Jackson said: “We talked once. And he said, ‘I don’t know if I should come out and make a statement.’… And I said, ‘Listen… I don’t want any drama for you. They’re aiming all of this at me.’ So I said, ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t say anything’.”

Randy also revealed how the glam rock icon David Bowie once offered substance abuse to him and Michael Jackson, he said, “Michael and I are sitting in one of the other rooms away from the party. 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’.”

The documentary also sees a tearful Janet also breaking silence on the rumours of her secret child, “Back in the day, they were saying that I had a child and I kept it secret. 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 rumour started going around.”

She also said how the sexual abuse allegations against her brother Michael also affected her. When Coca-Cola heard about the first sexual abuse allegations against Michael by a 13-year-old boy, they decided to part ways from Janet, who was about to work with them. Janet said, “When that came out, Coca-Cola said, ‘No, thank you’.” Though Janet says she knew her brother “would never do something like that”, she still felt “guilty by association.”