True You

by Janet Jackson

  The weight issue resides in mystery. It requires compassion on every imaginable level. It requires infinite patience, relentless attention, and prayerful treatment.

  It’s as though we view our bodies with our minds and not our eyes. And it’s also as though we are prepared to dislike whatever we see. It becomes a basis for self-contempt, with consequences that follow us for decades.

  If we can understand what’s happening when it’s happening, we have a chance to take positive steps. Without understanding, the challenge is overwhelming.

  I know that my relationship with James left its emotional scars. I’m not at all blaming him. I’m simply saying that I jumped into the role as a caretaker when I was still immature. I played the part of the rescuer when I myself was lost at sea.

  Psychologically and physically, I was intimate with someone I thought I knew—but I really didn’t. I moved too quickly. I behaved irrationally. I didn’t know what I wanted, yet I gave the impression that I did.

  I thought I was helping James, but in reality I wasn’t. I was enabling him. I was actually hurting him—and myself.

  I was a confused teenager. But at that age, who isn’t confused?

  I am fourteen in a limo, feeling alone and overwhelmed.

  “Fantasy”

  During my teen years, I spent a great deal of time in silence. The quick collapse of my impulsive marriage was nothing I wanted to talk about. I had neither an explanation nor apologies. I was young, and I was foolish, and I had made a bad decision. When I decided to get out of the marriage, I made a good decision, one based on a concept of self-care. I certainly didn’t have a fully developed sense of self-worth, but I was slowly—very slowly—beginning to build such strength.

  Even before I met James, I had begun dabbling in another area—artistic expression.

  One day I wandered up to the recording studio that had been built in my family’s backyard. I just started messing around. I’d watched my brothers work there for years. I myself had written poems and short stories since I was eight. I wrote my first song when I was nine and called it “Fantasy.” But I never thought much about it. A few years later I began toying with the idea of writing music.

  There was something about this rainy winter afternoon that had me fooling around at the keyboard. Joining words to music was new for me, but I liked it. I wasn’t self-conscious, because I didn’t take it that seriously. I was simply playing with thoughts and sounds in my head. I didn’t think the thoughts were profound; I didn’t think the music was great. I was merely expressing myself. The lyrics were all about my teenage-girl notions of loneliness and love.

  I was able to work the mixing board well enough to lay down my music tracks and record my voice. And just as I didn’t take the lyrics and melody very seriously, neither did I have much regard for my singing. I just did it. And after hearing what I did, I didn’t even smile or feel especially fulfilled. The truth is that I didn’t think about it at all. It was a few hours spent in solitude in which I was able to voice some feelings.

  A few days passed, and I forgot about the music I had made. Then one day I came home from school and saw that the door to the recording studio was open. The song that I’d written and recorded was being played at full volume. My first reaction was embarrassment.

  When I got to the studio, I saw that Randy and my father were there.

  “I guess I forgot to erase the song,” I said.

  “Why would you want to throw it away?” asked Randy.

  “It isn’t anything,” I said.

  “Who wrote the melody?”

  “I did.”

  “And you did the drum and piano part?”

  “I tried,” I said.

  “And the background vocals?”

  “Are they out of tune?” I asked.

  “No, they’re in tune. And what about the lyrics?”

  “They’re kind of stupid, aren’t they?”

  “They sound pretty good. What do you think, Joseph?”

  “Janet,” said Joseph. “Did you really do this?”

  “I guess so.”

  “It’s not half bad,” Joseph declared.

  “I don’t like it,” I said.

  “You can sing. I believe you can become a singer,” he said.

  “I don’t want to sing,” I said. “I want to act. I want to go to college and study business law.”

  My plan was to support myself as an actress. I greatly admired theatrical artists like Cicely Tyson. I had practically memorized Tyson’s lines in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. I also loved classic actresses like Joan Crawford and contemporary ones like Meryl Streep.

  “Acting is okay,” said Joseph. “But you’ll never make the kind of money acting that you will singing. You have talent as a singer.”

  “But singing isn’t really something I want to do.”

  “Do you have any more tapes like this?” Joseph asked, ignoring my last comment.

  “No.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s a good start. And it gives me a lot of good ideas about where you should be going. It shows me something I haven’t seen before.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. But deep down I didn’t feel that it was wonderful. Joseph was taking an interest in a career for me—that part was okay. But the plain fact was that I was not being asked what I wanted to do. I wanted to complete junior high, then high school, then college. There was a world of learning I wanted to explore.

  But before I could explain to Joseph why I wasn’t interested in a singing career, my father closed down the discussion. It was his way. And that was that.

  A few weeks later Joseph returned with the news: he had secured me a contract at A&M Records. I was set to do an album. I was all of fourteen years old.

  I didn’t want to do an album. I wasn’t ready to do an album.

  “Teenage artists are always the rage,” said Joseph. “Frankie Lymon was. Michael was. And you’re next.”

  But another part of me—a powerful part—didn’t want to proceed with the project. Unfortunately, that part stayed silent. I was being a good little girl and doing what I was told. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not whining. It’s paid off well. I’m just telling you my reaction. And an essential part of the story is rooted in my inability to confront Joseph. Why, in fact, did I retreat so passively?

  If I had felt better about myself, would I have spoken up and protested?

  If I had not been afraid of Joseph, would I have resisted his plan?

  If I had felt more secure in my body and in my soul, would I have found the strength to say “No, not now. I need to wait. I need to grow. I need to feel my way into the world and not be pushed”?

  I’m still not sure.

  A private moment.

  Start Anew

  The truth is that in my career, I was pushed. I went along with the pushing. I went along with the program. I went into the studio and, as a young teen, began to sing under the guidance of producers Leon Sylvers III, Angela Winbush, and René Moore. Singles were released. “Young Love” was a hit with young people. I was about to fall in love, or what I thought was love, but my relationship was not as successful as the song.

  I was still self-conscious about my image, my body. What would I look like on the album cover? How would I show my shape, which was still a source of uncertainty and, at times, of out-and-out shame?

  I got the idea for a cover when I saw a photograph of Elizabeth Taylor taken early in her career. She was submerged in a swimming pool. You could see nothing but her face above the water; her body was hidden beneath the surface. I thought the pose was dramatic and I loved the fact that I could do the same thing and not have to reveal anything but my face. The record company hired the famous Hollywood photographer Harry Langdon, the sweetest man imaginable, to take the picture. He knew exactly what I wanted, but it was still a difficult shoot. With the photographer, his assistant, and other people around the pool, I was reluctant to take off my robe and st
and there in my bathing suit. I was too shy to ask everyone to look the other way, so at a moment when everyone was distracted I quickly slipped into the pool.

  We copied the original Elizabeth Taylor pose, and that was that. After Langdon was satisfied that he had gotten the right shot, I waited till everyone left before getting out of the pool. As a result, my first album cover as a solo artist would reveal nothing below my neck.

  By today’s standards, the record, titled Janet Jackson, did well, selling more than three hundred thousand copies. But by the standards of 1982, the year of its release, it did not. It was seen as a failure. And it certainly did not bring me any closer to the fame that had been achieved by my brothers.

  The same is true of Dream Street, the follow-up album. At that point I was still a teenager going with the flow. In my family, smash hits meant everything. It wasn’t enough to merely put out a good record. Joseph had taught us that anything less than number one meant failure. That lesson, though, hadn’t really sunk in yet. I wasn’t worried about reaching the top of the charts. I was just letting my father lead the way.

  I knew that Joseph cared about success and that he cared about success for me. It took a while, but after Dream Street, at age eighteen, I also began to think about what it meant for me to care for myself. That was a different concept.

  Slowly—very slowly—I was beginning to understand that if major success were to come, it would have to come on my terms, not my father’s. If my early albums did just okay, as opposed to great, I would have to figure out why. If I wanted my music to reflect more of me, I’d have to put more of myself into it.

  I wasn’t afraid of falling short. I’ve always been pretty brave as a performer. I’ll go out there and do what I have to do. But falling short while following someone else’s agenda is frustrating and even infuriating. Falling short while following your own instincts is another matter. I could live with that. I could also see that, as I became more of an artist, my art needed to be self-reflective. I always had my own thoughts and ideas. But was I ready to put those things into songs or, better yet, into a concept album?

  I thought so—but could I really step out and be myself? Could I be that brave, and that vulnerable?

  My other fathers, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.

  Control

  At nineteen, I felt the need to take control of my life. I moved to Minneapolis to make the album Control, and everything changed. It was a watershed moment; my life was never the same again. The move had to be made, but it took everything I had to find the courage to do so. Yet it was exciting as well. I had admired producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis for a long time. We had seen each other at different award shows and talked. I loved the music they were making and knew I wanted to work with them.

  I was at an emotional dead end, however. Up until then, I’d depended on an authority that I recognized and respected. But I had also decided that the authority did not have the right answers. Remember, I had been an obedient child and was an obedient teen. So to figure out the next move on my own—and not on the basis of what others were saying—was scary.

  I knew that I was leaving a big part of my childhood behind in moving to Minneapolis. I was losing the main connection to my father, which was about business, work, and career. Now I realized that to move forward, I had to start thinking for myself. I had to figure out where I was and where I wanted to go. I not only had to deal with feelings I had previously suppressed, but also had to put those feelings into lyrics and melodies. I wanted to write, not out of obligation, but out of passion. That meant identifying myself as my own person.

  In short, I had to move on.

  The first thing I felt was vulnerability. I felt unprotected. My father is a strong man, and whatever differences I may have had with his management style, I had been comforted by his strength.

  “You’re strong,” said Jimmy Jam, who was producing the record with Terry Lewis. “You’re stronger than you think you are.”

  The move to Minneapolis tested that strength. I was happy to be pushed by Jimmy and Terry. I was also able to push myself.

  On one level, for all my show business experience, I had been brought up and sheltered in the suburbs of Los Angeles. In Minneapolis, I encountered a whole set of new challenges. Some were not pleasant. At one point, I was stalked by a group of guys on the street. I had been heading somewhere when I noticed them following me. They began to taunt me and I began to feel nervous. But instead of running, I turned and faced them. I backed them down. I had wanted to run, but something inside me wouldn’t let me do that. I had to confront them. It was a matter of self-respect and self-defense.

  Those were the emotions I put into “Nasty” and “What Have You Done for Me Lately,” key parts of the suite of songs that became Control.

  Through Jimmy, Terry, and the other people working on the record, I made new friends in Minneapolis. One boy was a teenager, as I was, and he saw me as a sister. I liked him a lot. We’d have lunch together and sometimes walk through one of the malls.

  I’ll call him Todd. He was in his first year of college and was studying dance. He had recently gotten engaged to a girl back in his hometown. He described her as being “assertive.”

  “You mean sexually?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “And that makes you uncomfortable?”

  “I’d rather wait.”

  “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “She thinks there is. She says this is the move I have to make to prove that I love her and care.”

  “And when she tells you that, what do you say?”

  “That I’m not ready.”

  “That sounds like a good answer. That sounds like you want to be serious about her before you have sex.”

  “She says that the only reason I’m hesitating is because maybe I’m gay.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Maybe.”

  A long silence followed before either of us said anything. Then Todd began to speak about his older brother, who had come out to his parents two years before. His parents had flipped out and disowned him. They were religious fundamentalists and convinced that their son would burn in hell. I remember Todd saying, “I don’t know which is the right move.”

  We kept walking and I waited a minute or so before saying, “Maybe it isn’t a move at all. Maybe it’s just you being you. You need to take your time and figure out how you feel.”

  “I feel a lot of different things,” he said.

  “We all do.”

  “And it’s hard to decide. It’s hard to say.”

  “You don’t have to decide and you don’t have to say. It’s not like you have to make a declaration, especially since you aren’t sure. It’s complicated, and maybe it’s okay just to live with the complications the way they are. I know that’s uncomfortable.”

  “Janet, I’m really afraid of what my girlfriend will say if I keep putting her off. And I’m also real scared of what my parents will say if I tell them I have these mixed-up feelings.”

  “Sometimes parents are the right people to discuss our mixed-up feelings with, and sometimes they aren’t.”

  “But I love my parents.”

  “That still doesn’t mean that they’re the right people to hear what’s in your heart right now. They come from a different place and time.”

  “I don’t want to disappoint them,” said Todd. “And I don’t want to disappoint my girlfriend.”

  “I understand.”

  “So what do you think I should do?”

  We stopped walking and stood in front of a big department store. The mall was bustling. Everyone was in a hurry.

  “I don’t know, Todd,” I said. “Maybe the best thing is just to wait awhile.”

  The actual song on Control—“Let’s Wait Awhile”—was recorded before I met Todd. It’s a song that I wrote with no particular person in mind. But after that discussion, I connected that song to Todd and millions of young people who might need encoura
gement to think rather than act, to pause rather than move. This album was the first time I got to really put so many emotions and feelings into words. It was very personal. And people could feel that when they listened to it.

  Around the time of Control, when I was breaking off my professional relationship with Joseph, I received a letter from a girl who had liked Janet Jackson and Dream Street.

  Dear Janet,

  I think of us as friends, even though I know we’re not. You’re an imaginary friend, and that’s good enough for me. We have a lot in common. We’re about the same age and we both have older brothers who made big successes of themselves. One of my brothers is a heart surgeon; another is a professional athlete; and another runs a bank. There’s a twelve-year gap between them and me. I’m the baby of the family. Our father is a military man and, as a child, we’ve lived all over the world—Japan, Germany, England, and about six different American cities. Living on an army base is strange, and living with a military dad is even stranger. It isn’t that he doesn’t love his children. He does. He loves us all very much. But he sees us as soldiers. He’s our commander. He gives instructions that we must follow to the letter. If we don’t, the penalties are really severe. He even treats Mom that way. Sometimes I wish she would disobey him—just so I could see what would happen—but she never does. She’s afraid. So am I. And so are my brothers. They’re all doing exactly what he told them do. We all have to be the best at what we do—and that’s probably a good thing.

  Except that I don’t know what I’m really good at. My dad tells me I need to be a teacher and become the principal of a high school or the president of a college. I get good grades in school, but I’m not sure I even want to be a teacher. I’m good at drawing and am thinking of being an illustrator. Dad doesn’t like that idea. If I date a boy my dad doesn’t think has a future, my future with that boy is over before it begins. Or if I do find someone I like who passes Dad’s test, next thing I know Dad is announcing that we’re moving to a new base.