‘This is a story about control,” whispered Janet Jackson on the title track of her 1986 album. The singer’s new four-part documentary (Sky Documentaries) is an attempt to control her own story. Executive produced by Jackson and her brother Randy, and five years in the making, the series consolidates her 40 years as a recording artist. It is also Jackson reasserting herself in the first person, after years away from public view.
Hearing directly from Jackson is an increasingly rare event. Her soft voice was missing from the New York Times’ 2021 documentary Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson, which focused on “Nipplegate”, the Super Bowl fiasco in 2004 that kneecapped her music career. By the time she apologised on Oprah, the damage was done. Jackson has made it clear that the split-second wardrobe malfunction was an embarrassing accident, but in the eyes of the conservative US it was premeditated “filth” inflicted on innocent audiences. The event overshadowed her legacy as one of the biggest pop stars of the 80s and 90s. (Here, it is covered in the final episode, the only one unavailable for preview at the time of writing.)
