Long before she was a superstar, Janet Jackson had a chore most kids could only dream about. Or maybe have nightmares about.
Janet is the youngest of the nine Jackson children. Her big brother Michael, the future King of Pop, was the one she called “Mike.” And when the family lived on their three-acre home in Encino, California, the place was less like a house and more like a small zoo.
The list is long. A giraffe, a chimpanzee and a llama shared the grounds with snakes, sheep, deer, dogs and a parrot. For a time, Michael’s chimp Bubbles lived at the family house too, the Encino home everybody knew as Hayvenhurst.
Somebody had to take care of all of them.
That somebody was Janet.
She talked about it years later on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” in an interview that aired on Feb 10, 2020. “We had so many animals growing up,” she told Jimmy.
Then she started naming them, and you can tell she hasn’t forgotten a single one. “We had fawn, Mouflon sheep, peacocks, a giraffe … just all kinds of animals. It was my job to feed them, to clean them.”
That’s a lot of feeding. And a lot of cleaning.
It makes more sense when you know what young Janet wanted to be. Before singing ever came into the picture, she wanted to be a jockey, not a singer.
Now for the part that makes this story so much fun. All those animals lived in cages and pens, and the cages needed a key. You’d think a kid would lose a key like that in about a week. Janet came up with her own way to keep it safe.
For years, she wore the cage key on an earring.
That’s right. Michael’s little sister walked around the Jackson home with the key to the family zoo hanging from her ear, according to Lifetime’s documentary “Janet Jackson.” The film says she did much of the animal care at the Encino home herself.
It’s hard not to smile at that picture. She’d grow up to be a superstar, but back then she was the kid with the key, making sure the giraffe got its dinner.
Janet’s visit with Jimmy Fallon in February 2020 is the same one where she looked back on all those animals, and this clip from that night is a chance to see her talk about family again, this time about her own little boy.
Janet Jackson chats with Jimmy Fallon about her young son
There’s something sweet about hearing Janet talk about her son after you know about her own childhood chores. She went from feeding peacocks and cleaning pens to being a mom with a little one of her own.
And it’s fun to think of her at home in Encino, still a teenager, with that key swinging from one ear as she headed out to the yard with a bucket of feed.
So the next time one of Janet’s songs comes on the radio, you might find yourself picturing that earring and smiling about the little sister who kept the whole Jackson zoo running.