My brother Michael Jackson used to call me pig, cow and horse. I laughed but deep down it hurt, says Janet Jackson
JANET Jackson has told for the first time how her superstar brother Michael fat-shamed her as a youngster, leaving her with painful body image issues.
The Rhythm Nation singer says: “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 makes the emotional revelation in a shocking self-titled four-parter due to air on Sky Documentaries and Now TV from Monday.
The documentary series, which she has spent five years making, reveals how she has struggled with her weight since the age of ten, 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 $23million 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.”
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.
'HE WAS STANDOFFISH'
She explained: “When that came out, Coca-Cola said, ‘No, thank you’. Guilty by association. That’s what they call it, right?”
She and Michael later attacked the coverage of the 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 $7million. 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 his life at his Las Vegas home — but he refused to listen.
Recalling the conversation with him, alongside his brothers from The Jackson 5, she 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 standoffish. 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.
'HE WAS SO MAD'
She explains: “I am thankful because it has opened a great deal of doors for me, having that name.
“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.
She recalls: “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.
“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.
She says: “I remember going to Michigan, Grand Rapids, and his uncle, a pastor, married us.
“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 people that use drugs.”
Then things became horrible during their short-lived relationship. She says: “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 HAVEN'T GIVEN UP ON LOVE'
“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.
“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 she is still keen to find peace — and love.
She adds: “I haven’t given up on love. I feel it’s more difficult being in the public eye and looking for love.
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“A healthy relationship would be nice for me in the future.”
- Janet Jackson airs on Sky Documentaries and Now from January 31.
Family's racist ordeal
JANET was subjected to vile racism as a child, with neighbours campaigning to ban her family from the area because of their skin colour.
Parents Joe and Katherine relocated with their nine children – Rebbie, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, La Toya, Marlon, Michael, Randy and Janet – from Gary, Indiana, to Encino, California, after The Jackson 5’s early success.
There, slurs were hurled at her and other children would constantly touch her skin and hair.
Janet recalls: “A lot of the people didn’t want us there. They had a petition going around because they didn’t want us in the neighbourhood.
“I remember walking down the street and being called the N-word, someone driving by and yelling it out, and being told to ‘go back home to your country’.
“And feeling it at school with some of the teachers and some of the kids touching your hair because your hair was different from theirs, or your skin, rubbing it, like ‘does that come off?’ ‘No, does yours?’
“I didn’t have a lot of friends, I had a couple but my closest were my brothers and sisters.”
A white neighbour, Wende Watt, tells the TV show: “I grew up in Encino, next door to the Jackson family.
"It was an affluent, white neighbourhood. I think the Jacksons were the first black family to move in so it was a little controversial at that time."
Bowie's drugs offer
RANDY JACKSON claims David Bowie once offered him and Michael drugs when they were youngsters.
The 60-year-old, who also features in the docuseries, said the Brit star was a guest at an A-list party being thrown at their home.
Janet says: “I can remember one of the parties that we had, Bowie came, and I guess to get away from everyone he was looking for a little room.”
Randy continues: “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, like, ‘No’. We didn’t know what it was but we were like, ‘No, thank you’."