It took less than one second to temporarily derail the iconic career Janet Jackson had been building for more than 30 years.
Janet was famous from birth. The youngest child of the Jackson clan, she was joining her siblings on stage and on television by age seven. At 11, she had her first acting role, in the American sitcom Good Times. By 16, her father, Joseph, had secured her first record deal. Janet released two generic pop albums in the early ’80s that flopped, at the same time that her brother Michael (who was seven years older) was creating musical history – a fact not lost on her harsher critics.
At 18 she eloped, the secret marriage (which lasted a year) an early sign of the defiance that would become her brand. This rebellious streak reared again when she sacked her strict father as manager and took the reins for her third album, 1986’s Control. She followed that up with Rhythm Nation 1814 and by the start of 1990 she had sold more than 20 million albums.
A string of singles had topped the US charts
