In a bombshell documentary five years in the making, Janet Jackson has made stunning revelations about her late brother, Michael.
Janet Jackson has told for the first time how her superstar brother Michael regularly fat-shamed her, before revealing why they grew apart prior to his death.
Opening up in a new documentary five years in the making, the Rhythm Nation singer said the late Michael Jackson would call her horrible names, The Sun reports.
“There were times when Mike used to tease me and call me names … ‘Pig, horse, sl*t, or hog, cow’,” Janet says.
“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 makes the emotional revelation in a shocking four-part docuseries, titled Janet Jackson, due to air its first two episodes overseas later this week. There is no word yet on an Australian airdate.
The documentary series reveals how Janet has struggled with her weight since the age of 10, when she won the role of abandoned girl Penny on the US sitcom Good Times.
Janet, 55, explains: “I’m an emotional eater, so when I get stressed or something is really bothering me, it comforts me.
“I did Good Times and that’s the beginning of having 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.”
Asked if it would be different if she wasn’t in the public eye, she adds: “I probably would have wound up not having a problem.”
Despite the seven-year age gap between her and older brother Michael and his comments about her, the pair had been very close as children.
But she admits she and Michael, who died in 2009 aged 50, drifted apart as they grew older.
And she was devastated when he was first accused of child sex abuse in 1993 — when 13-year-old Jordan Chandler alleged Michael molested him at his home, Neverland, in California.
Asked if the allegations affected her, she says: “Yeah. It was frustrating for me.
“We have our own separate lives and even though he’s my brother, that has nothing to do with me.
“But I wanted to be there for him, to support him as much as I possibly could.”
The lawsuit was settled in January 1994 with a $23 million payout to the Chandlers.
Janet says: “Michael wound up giving money to the family. He just wanted it to go away, but that looks like you’re guilty.”
At the time, Janet had been about to sign what would have been the biggest brand deal of her career with Coca-Cola. But the allegation against Michael thwarted it.
“When that came out, Coca-Cola said, ‘No, thank you’. Guilty by association. That’s what they call it, right?” Janet says.
She and Michael later hit back at the coverage of allegations against him in their 1995 single Scream.
But things were never the same between them, she said, with Michael’s team making it hard for her to even see him.
Filming of the music video overran and costs spiralled to $7 million. Of the shoot, she says: “It was his song and I was there to support him.
“Michael shot nights, I shot days. His record company would block off his set so I couldn’t see what was going on. They didn’t want me on set.
“I felt like they were trying to make it very competitive between the two of us.
“That really hurt me because I felt I was there fighting the fight with him, not to battle him.
“I wanted it to feel like old times between he and I, and it didn’t. Old times had long passed.”
A few years later her family tried to stage an intervention in Michael’s life at his Las Vegas home — but he refused to listen.
Recalling the conversation with him, alongside his brothers from The Jackson 5, Janet says: “I said, ‘We wanted to talk about you guys going on tour again and if you guys would do that as brothers. I would be honoured to open for you’.
“He didn’t have much to say, he was stand-offish. I was really upset.
“My family chartered a private jet and they came for an intervention. It was a way of us getting close again and he wasn’t having it.”
But she admits they had started to grow apart years earlier, when Michael released his groundbreaking best-selling album, Thriller, in 1982.
Janet, who was then beginning her own lucrative music career, explains: “It was Thriller, that’s when it all started to change.
“I remember really loving the Thriller album but for the first time in my life I felt it was different between us, a shift was happening.
“That’s the time Mike and I started going our separate ways. He just wasn’t as fun as he used to be.”
She went on to have a string of hugely successful albums and 17 Top Ten singles in the UK alone, including All For You and What Have You Done For Me Lately.
But in the docuseries, Janet admits she felt her surname was a burden because of the constant comparisons.
“I am thankful because it has opened a great deal of doors for me, having that name,” she says.
“And at the same time there’s a great deal of scrutiny which 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.”
Janet was pushed into music by her father Joe, who became known for his strict, violent behaviour with his children.
In the first episode of the docuseries she recalls how he would sometimes wake his children in the morning by burning their feet with matches.
“Growing up, I didn’t experience my father the way I wanted to. You never knew what mood he was in — whether he was in a playful mood. But the way he played wasn’t even funny,” she says.
“My father used to wake us up sometimes by putting matches between our toes and lighting them. He could be very mean at times.”
He wasn’t the only man who was hard on her, though.
In 1984 she secretly wed singer James DeBarge, from vocal group DeBarge — only to discover his addiction issues.
“I remember going to Michigan, Grand Rapids, and his uncle, a pastor, married us,” she says.
“We got married and came back to the hotel and then he said, ‘OK, I’ll be right back’.
“And I’m sitting in the hotel by myself, just 18 and for three hours he never came back.
“It’s no secret, when it comes to relationships, somehow I’m attracted to drug addicts.”
Then things became horrible during their short-lived relationship. She says: “You know the shovels at the fireplace? That was pushed down on my throat one time.
“I sit and I say, ‘Were you stupid?’ But it wasn’t that. I cared so much for him and I saw the good in him as well. I just wanted that to take precedence instead of this ugliness.
“I remember deciding to get a divorce, or an annulment I should say, because it only lasted a year.
“One day he wanted me to drive him to his brother’s house and that’s when I told him and he had me stop the car.
“I remember him ramming my head up against the side of the car.
“He was so mad and so frustrated and when he got out of the car I locked the doors. I remember driving back home to my parents’ house. I was just done.”
In 1991 she married her backing dancer, René Elizondo Jr, but she claims that union became toxic when he started trying to control her life and image.
Following their divorce in 2000 she romanced US record producer Jermaine Dupri, but eventually wed Saudi billionaire Wissam Al Mana in 2012, with whom she had her son Eissa, now four.
They separated in 2017, but Janet is still open to the idea of love.
“I haven’t given up on love. I feel it’s more difficult being in the public eye and looking for love,” she says.
“A healthy relationship would be nice for me in the future.”
This story originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission
Originally published as Janet Jackson reveals brother Michael Jackson called her ‘pig’ and ‘sl*t’
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