5 Times Janet Jackson Had Us Talking About Her Over the Last 50 Years

As Janet Jackson marks her 50th birthday (and we all wonder whe-re the time went), we’re still digesting the news that the pop star is pregnant with her first child. But that’s hardly the first time she’s dominated the headlines. Here are a few of the top times she’s had us all talking. 

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Good Times, f-rom left: Bob Delegall, Janet Jackson, Ja'net DuBois, in “The Evans Get Involved: Part 1 & 2.” (Photo: Everett Collection)

1. A young Janet joined the cast of Good Times for the four-part season opener in 1977 in an arc on child abuse that continued the Norman Lear show’s history of taking on social ills. Her perky Penny with the Band-Aid on her forehead and the image of her mother coming at her with a hot iron are striking memories of that time.

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Control album cover and “Rhythm Nation” video. (Photo: A&M Records/YouTube)

2. With 1986’s Control, her third album, a grown-up Janet broke away f-rom her baby-faced image and established a persona that was all about independence and sexiness. Her fourth album, Rhythm Nation 1814, in 1989 had a decidedly more militant/sociopolitical bent and had a generation trying to copy those moves f-rom the title track’s video.

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Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake perform during the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004. (Photo: Donald Miralle/Getty Images) 

3. The singer’s killer Super Bowl halftime show performance with Justin Timberlake in 2004 came to a stunning end when Timberlake ripped the leather cup off her bustier and exposed her right breast instead of the red lace bra that reps said was planned. What was soon dubbed Nipplegate led to fines for just about everyone involved, protests f-rom concerned groups, and apologies f-rom both the artists. But it was always Jackson who bore the brunt of that backlash, and in a 2006 Oprah Winfrey Show interview, when asked if she felt Timberlake had not stuck up for her enough, she said, “To a certain degree, yeah.”

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