Five years in the making, it’s safe to say that Janet Jackson’s new self-titled documentary has been eagerly anticipated by fans worldwide since its explosive trailer dropped.

The compelling new documentary on Jackson’s life has been created to mark the 40th anniversary of her self-titled 1982 debut album and is executive produced by the singer and her brother Randy Jackson.

It’s heralded as the “definitive story on Janet” and as well as exploring the highs and lows of Jackson’s personal and professional life, never-before-seen footage and interviews give us an inside look into how Jackson coped with the death of her brother, the passing of her father Joe Jackson in 2018, the notorious 2004 Super Bowl halftime performance with Justin Timberlake, and becoming a mother at the age of 50.

There are some truly insightful moments in the four-part documentary and we’ve rounded up some of the best. 

As the youngest in a family of already very talented stars, Janet confesses that she often felt like an outcast growing up with her brothers touring and leaving for LA all of the time. She says in the documentary that she often asked herself the question: “Where do I fit in?”

Her first time on stage was actually in Las Vegas at the tender age of seven. 

While the crowd loved when her brothers would bring her on stage, she says that it was “a lot for a seven-year-old” and, although such appearances would garner a wage of up to $100,000 a week, she doesn’t ever remember being asked to join the group. “I just remember being put into it,” she says.

Probably one of the most profound revelations from the documentary is the fact that Jackson never aspired to be a singer. Instead, she admits, she wanted to pursue a business law degree and go to college. 

Talking about the way her family didn’t quite “fit in” to their new majority white LA neighbourhood, she admits that her close friends were her siblings. It was fine, she says, but she was excitedly looking forward to the days of college dorm rooms, new friends and experiences. 

That prospect was taken away from her, though, when she recorded a snippet of a song in the Jackson home studio. 

Recording songs and melodies was something she was used to doing but after forgetting to delete it, she found her father and brothers, Michael and Randy, all listening to it when she came back home. Having liked it, her father insisted that she sing instead. She can laugh about it now but asks: “What parent doesn’t want you to go to college?”

While Joe Jackson – who died in 2018 – was the notoriously strict patriarch of the Jackson clan, Janet does admit that their relationship was a complex one.

With allegations of physical, mental and sexual abuse from his children, Joe Jackson’s legacy is a particularly tricky one to navigate but is one that Janet seemingly wants to clear in the documentary.

She says: “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.

“Discipline without love is tyranny – and tyrants, they were not. They just loved us and wanted us to be the best we could be. Obviously, it worked.”

As well as a tumultuous relationship with her father, she also had to navigate having him as her manager. 

She admits: “I wanted my own identity, but at that time, my father was in charge 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.” Her sound, the content of her first songs and her look were all things that she had no input in. 

Janet was very aware of the draw of her surname, something she didn’t want to lean on in her solo career, so she didn’t want to have the Jackson name on the album or related to her new image either. 

This was a wish she obviously wasn’t granted as the self-titled Janet Jackson album came out in 1982 alongside a photo cover she also didn’t approve.

As well as starring in Good Times at a young age, Jackson also joined the fourth season of acclaimed series Fame, where she starred alongside Debbie Allen – something she actually never wanted to be a part of.

“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.”

Throughout the 80s, Jackson was plagued by rumours and allegations that she had a secret pregnancy and baby with her first husband, singer James DeBarge. The tabloids lit up with the story, even claiming that a niece of hers was actually her own daughter that was being raised by her siblings. 

Jackson was only 18 when she married DeBarge in secret and in the documentary, explores the impact of her short-lived marriage and how DeBarge’s drug use came as a complete surprise to her “naïve” younger self.

There were many nights when she would go and drive around looking for James or rolling around the floor fighting the pills off of him. She admits: “I saw the good in him as well … I knew that he needed help but I wasn’t the help that he needed.” 

Although Jackson confesses that she felt closest to her brother Michael, she does remember the exact moment she noticed a shift in her brother – and it was upon the release of Thriller.

“That’s when it all started changing,” Jackson says, recalling the time when Michael’s 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.”

Although her brother Michael had signed a huge deal with Pepsi, Coca-Cola was excited to partner with Jackson for a big-figure deal. Everything was in the process of being signed when Michael was first accused of sexual abuse by a 13-year-old boy in 1993. 

“When that came out, Coca-Cola said, ‘No, thank you,’” she says. While Jackson and her family stood beside her brother for support, she still felt “guilty by association.”

“It wasn’t fair, it was frustrating for me, but you can’t let it stop you and didn’t,” Janet remembers of the time. “You keep pushing, forging ahead. I just knew I wanted to be there for him to support him as much as I possibly could.”

After the halftime Super Bowl performance that upended Jackson’s career, all eyes are on the documentary for an insight into her experience but many will be surprised. 

Dubbed as ‘Nipplegate’, the 2004 performance saw Jackson bring out Justin Timberlake as a surprise guest, but while singing Rock Your Body, part of Jackson’s top tore off, exposing her breast. It led to countless complaints, people condemning Jackson for her sexualised performance and had a very real impact on her future releases.

She reveals in the documentary, though, that she actually told Timberlake to remain silent about the incident as she was prepared to take the brunt of the blame. 

In a conversation with her brother Randy in the documentary, Janet shares: “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.’”

Janet Jackson airs tonight at 9pm on Sky Documentaries and is available to stream on NOW TV.

Image: Sky/Getty