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Janet Jackson’s highly anticipated documentary will be airing on Jan. 28 and 29, and she is opening up about the ups and downs she went through behind the scenes during her legendary career. Surprisingly, in the documentary, titled Janet, she revealed that her brother, the late Michael Jackson, played a role in the body issues she started to experience when she was 10-years-old. The “All For You” singer said he often called her names.
“There were times when Mike used to tease me and call me names . . . ‘Pig, horse, slaughter hog, cow’,” she said according to The Sun.“He would laugh about it and I’d laugh too, but then there was some where down inside that it would hurt…When you have somebody say you’re too heavy, it affects you.”
Jackson, 55, said she has struggled with body image issues since she was a child star and has had a not-so-healthy relationship with food.
“I’m an emotional eater, so when I get stressed or something is really bothering me, it comforts me,” she said. “I did Good Times and that’s the beginning of having weight issues and the way I looked at myself.”
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Jackson also spoke about her relationship with her big brother and how they drifted a part as they got older. She said that after the release of his album Thriller in 1982, things began to change between them.
“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,” she said. “That’s the time Mike and I started going our separate ways. He just wasn’t as fun as he used to be.”
She said that after she lost a lucrative Coca-Cola as a result of her sexual abuse accusations against her brother in 1993, that led to him paying the family of Jordan Chandler $23 million, their relationship took even more of a hit. She felt his team was trying to keep them away from each other while they were filming the video for their single “Scream,” in 1995.
“Michael shot nights, I shot days. His record company would block off his set so I couldn’t see what was going on,” she said. “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 they’re 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.”
The two-part, four-hour documentary airs on Jan. 28 and 29 on Lifetime at 8 p.m. EST.
