Inside The Darkest Days of the Jackson Family | Michael & Janet Jackson
In January 1996, after releasing her most successful album to date, as well as a multi-million selling greatest hits collection and spawning several top charting hits, Janet Jackson signed another record-breaking contract with Virgin Records. This time for a 4-album deal at an unprecedented $80 million, making her, once again, the world’s highest paid entertainer ever. However, this time her brother wasn’t able to overshadow her career-defining achievement with his own historic feats. As Janet had developed into a consistently popular recording artist and stage performer, adapting to audience’s changing tastes and musical styles while still maintaining her own signature star appeal. Without the controversies and temperamental stardom of her brother, Michael, Janet Jackson had proven herself to be a bankable asset and a prestigious star that Virgin were keen to keep in their roster of signed recording artists.
By the late 1990s, Michael Jackson’s popularity was largely steeped in his own legacy rather than his current musical output. Unlike Michael, who in his career largely remained out of the spotlight when not in a current album cycle, Janet remained relevant to young audiences by collaborating with other popular and emerging talent, as well as maintaining her presence as an actor in popular blockbuster films.
When both Jacksons had new album titles to promote in 2001, with Janet’s ‘All For You’ and Michael’s ‘Invincible’, both were now commonly sighted as major influences for a new wave of teen pop musical acts. But how the two maintained relevancy through this association differed. Michael Jackson leaned heavily on the popularity of younger artists as they paid tribute to his earlier work during his 30th Anniversary Celebration television special. While Janet, who had never looked or performed better, gave her teenage contemporaries a run for their money, revamping her look and sound and showcasing them in dynamic performances that reasserted her position in the pop music orbit of stars.
Having recently come out of her secret marriage with René Elizondo Jr., instead of writing about the bitterness and anger that permeate most divorce albums, Jackson celebrated her new life as a single woman on her latest release. She sang about checking out guys at parties, dissing former boyfriends and described in explicit detail her sexual fantasies. For the cover, she went one step further than the “janet.” album by posing totally nude, wearing only a white sheet and a smile. This youthful, playful new image and sound proved successful for the artist and led to, yet again, another multi-platinum selling album and sold-out concert series.
In contrast, her brother’s musical career stalled after the initial release of ‘Invincible’ due to multiple disputes with his record label, as a result Michael went on to make public attacks against Sony Music Entertainment and their chairman. During 2002 and 2003, focus moved away from Michael’s music and issues with his record label, due to several personal blunders that played out in the tabloid press. Each one contributing to discussions questioning Michael’s mental state and capabilities as a father. After Martin Bashir’s ‘Living with Michael Jackson’ was televised in February 2003, which showed Jackson holding hands with a 12-year-old boy as he openly discussed sharing his bed with minors, suspicions that had haunted him since 1993’s allegations aroused a new set of controversies that played out daily in the headlines.
Having previously learnt not to get intrenched in the legal and personal dramas of her brother, Janet never passed comment and was largely out of the public eye in 2003 as she was preparing to release new music the following year. However, as public outrage built and a press smear campaign intensified, Michael’s very own legal and personal nightmare was realised on December 18th, 2003, when Santa Barbara authorities charged Jackson with seven counts of child molestation and two counts of intoxicating a minor.
Having always remained courteous by releasing albums in alternate years to each other, Janet was now in the unfavourable position of having to promote a new single, a new album, and a planned nationwide tour, just when Michael’s legal troubles were set to hit fever pitch, facing a gruelling legal trial with the real possibility of a lengthy jail sentence. It was with this eventuality in mind that Janet agreed to what she hoped would be a career defining move, taking the stage in front of a global audience of millions during the 2004’s Superbowl half-time show.
After Janet had wowed audiences with electrifying performances of ‘All for You’ and ‘Rhythm Nation’, she was joined onstage by Justin Timberlake and the two engaged in a playful rendition of his hit ‘Rock Your Body’. Once Timberlake said the final line, “I’ll get you naked by the end of this song”, it was planned that he would pull off a tearaway from Janet’s latex bodice, revealing part of her sultry red lingerie. But instead, Timberlake pulled the piece off with such force, the provocative reveal ended up backfiring, exposing Janet to an audience of over 90 million Americans on live television.
Hungry for another Jackson controversy, the mainstream press splashed images of Janet and the “wardrobe malfunction” all-over the television and on the front of every newspaper, with CNN falsely reporting that Jackson and Timberlake were arrested immediately after the performance and went into police custody. As a result of the mishap, the broadcast received over 500,000 complaints, CBS was fined $500,000 and the NFL was asked to give back the $10 million they received from the half time show sponsor. Internet searches for Janet Jackson’s Superbowl mishap were triple of that relating to the 2000 Presidential election, and the less than 2 seconds of breast exposure was also the most replayed moment ever on TiVo. Even then first lady, Laura Bush, passed comment on the controversy, “what it represented was a kind of television viewing that we don’t want little children to see.”
Speculation grew as it was debated whether the reveal was an accident or a “classless, crass and deplorable” planned publicity stunt, a la Madonna and Britney Spears tongue-kissing on MTV the year previously. Many stating that the incident attracted such a level of publicity that would have cost her a lot more than a TV commercial during the Super Bowl. These assumptions rallied up backlash against the over sexualisation of pop music and family entertainment, in which Janet Jackson would become the scapegoat for. The case caused a “galvanizing effect” on the move to toughen standards, said FCC Commissioner Michael Copps. Aside from the wardrobe malfunction, critics reviled Janet’s “revealing dominatrix attire” and “sex-simulating dance”, suggesting that Janet’s intentions were very much to push her adult appetites onto the children of America.
“Janet Jackson’s exposed breast wasn’t just a breast. It’s not as though she was lifting her eyelet smock to nurse the baby Jesus. Her breast was unsheathed in an aggressively sexual context to shock and titillate. But to shock and titillate whom, the children?” said conservative pundit, Kathleen Parker.
Family connections were therefore made between Janet’s much publicised and politicised act of “public indecency” and Michael’s upcoming trial involving children, with one member of the public writing in to say, “I am so upset that Janet Jackson would choose a family affair to pull her stunt. She didn’t think of the children there at the game and those at home that would be watching. She and Michael are bad mentors for our children. Both need to be banned from family and youth functions. I hope they’re not claiming to be Christians”.
Brother, Michael, even passed comment on the whole scenario during an interview with Geraldo Rivera, saying that he watched her performance and claimed he never saw anything at first. Agreeing with Rivera that the whole thing was “overblown” and thanked him for making the connection between the controversy that it caused and the Jackson family connection. As the backlash intensified and with both Janet and Justin saying little in hopes of staying out of the line of fire, many questioned whether this controversy would help or hinder her upcoming album release. “I don’t think it will hurt her popularity,” said William McKeen, chairman of the journalism department at the University of Florida. “It hurt her popularity with people who won’t buy her records. I don’t think her fans are upset. Her fans might think that’s a stupid thing to do. She doesn’t face the P.R. problems her brother does.”
However, when ‘Damita Jo’ was released, the sensual, sex-drenched record raised even more outrage among moral conservatives, who questioned whether Jackson planned her halftime peep show all along. In every interview, the focus was solely on the Superbowl controversy and not on the music, and as a result, the album received little promotion and airplay, MTV stopped playing her videos and many stations shadow banned her music. Even though Justin Timberlake was the one who actually exposed Janet to millions, he managed to maintain a fairly squeaky-clean image during this period even after admitting to marijuana use. While Janet, as a relative to a now suspected paedophile, was effectively blacklisted and inducted, along with brother Michael, into the press’s Weirdo Hall of Former Fame.
Upon the disappointing release of ‘Damita Jo’, Janet Jackson decided to switch focus from music to her family, as brother Michael was preparing to begin his legal trial beginning in early 2005. Alongside the rest of her family, Janet, once again, acted as a united front in support for her brother during the many dark days of his gruelling trial. Appearing together in all white ensembles, a colour that made them stand out in court and also symbolised Michael’s innocence. But also, may have symbolised white flags of defeat, during the heavy legal proceedings and the family’s persistent battering as part of the media circus that ensued outside. Janet expressed how the whole ordeal was hard not only on Michael, but the whole family was affected and indicated that she sank into another depression while dealing with Michael’s public backlash as well as her own.
Even after June 13th, 2005, when Michael was given a verdict of not guilty on all charges in the case, Janet was in no mood for jokes concerning what her and her family had been through in the last year. As indicated when she got a cheeky introduction from actor Alan Cummings, who referred to her Super Bowl breast-baring incident, as she received a humanitarian award from a gay rights group. Jackson apologized for her own lack of humour during her first public appearance since her brother’s acquittal. “My family and I have just gone through the least humorous chapter of our lives,” she explained. “I’m going to leave the jokes to the late-night comics, if that’s OK.”