When Janet Jackson appeared at the 2009 MTV VMAs just months after Michael died, she stood on that stage and said almost nothing at all. She didn’t have to. The silence said everything about how much she was still carrying.
Janet talks about being incredibly close to Michael
Years later, in her 2022 documentary, she opened up more.
She talked about what it was like to be his little sister, always by his side, always his support system.
She talked about performing their duet “Scream” on tour with video footage of him playing on the screen behind her, saying it’s still emotional every night, listening to him, seeing him, remembering them together.
The song was written in 1995 when Michael was at one of the lowest points of his life, under investigation and feeling publicly abandoned.
JANET SAT WITH HIM IN HIS NEW YORK APARTMENT AND WROTE IT WITH HIM. She said she relives all of it every time she performs it.
“I’m his sidekick in life” – Janet
What Michael wanted was never complicated. He said it himself in interviews throughout his life. He wanted to make music that brought people together. HE WANTED TO BE ACCEPTED AS A HUMAN BEING, NOT AS A SPECTACLE OR A HEADLINE.
He talked openly about his skin condition, about the loneliness of growing up famous, about crying from isolation as a child.
He said his brothers were his only real friends, and stated that he never had slumber parties or a normal childhood, just stages and studios.
THE END NOTE
The tragedy isn’t just that he died young. It’s that a man who spent his entire life trying to give people joy spent most of that same life feeling like he couldn’t be loved just for existing.
Janet has carried that knowledge for fifteen years, and reports claim that Janet always believed. Michael would have lived longer if people had considered him good enough for who he was, rather than dividing him between black and white