JANET JACKSON

On the 30th anniversary of her album Janet, Cameron Adams charts the life of an artist born into a legacy, who became an icon in her own right and endured and exposed one of the most public displays of misogyny this century

It took less than one second to temporarily derail the iconic career Janet Jackson had been building for more than 30 years. 

Janet was famous from birth. The youngest child of the Jackson clan, she was joining her siblings on stage and on television by age seven. At 11, she had her first acting role, in the American sitcom Good Times. By 16, her father, Joseph, had secured her first record deal. Janet released two generic pop albums in the early '80s that flopped, at the same time that her brother Michael (who was seven years older) was creating musical history a fact not lost on her harsher critics.

At 18 she eloped, the secret marriage (which lasted a year) an early sign of the defiance that would become her brand. This rebellious streak reared again when she sacked her strict father as manager and took the reins for her third album, 1986's Control. She followed that up with Rhythm Nation 1814 and by the start of 1990 she had sold more than 20 million albums.

A string of singles had topped the US charts "When I Think of You", "Miss You Much", "Escapade", "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" and "Black Cat" - and she'd enjoyed major global hits with "Nasty", "What Have You Done For Me Lately" and "Alright".

In her life and her career, everything had been accelerated. That was until that Super Bowl halftime performance in early February 2004 stopped almost everything. The shamefully misogynistic situation led to ongoing debates about race and gender once social media became the new media.

As her Super Bowl guest Justin Timberlake sang the line "Gonna have you naked by the end of this song", he ripped off part of Janet's top, exposing her right breast and nipple jewellery.

Demand to see the instantly infamous "wardrobe malfunction" was so high it led to the creation of YouTube, as the platform's founders were frustrated at not being able to find the clip online.