On February 1st, 2004, the career of one of the biggest pop stars in the world was destroyed in an instant. That was the day the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show happened. Headlined by Janet Jackson, other pop stars featured along with her. One of them, Justin Timberlake, was performing alongside her. After signing a lyrics about having you “naked by the end of this song,” he ripped away a part of Jackson’s dress. Underneath was her bare breast with a nipple shield. Her career all but ended at that moment.
Even looking at it from the time it happened, it was an overblown controversy. Should it have happened? No. But is the sight of a mostly exposed breast the worst thing in the world? Definitely not. It created an absolute uproar all the same. The FCC got involved, CBS was penalized, the NFL was scrutinized for its halftime shows, Janet Jackson’s career nosedived, and Justin Timberlake somehow got out of it perfectly fine. If any part of this is disgusting, it’s how Jackson suffered while Timberlake didn’t receive any repercussions.
Just How Big Was Janet Jackson?
Janet deserved a lot better. In 2003 she was still riding high in terms of popularity and success. If it wasn’t for her brother Michael Jackson being the King of Pop, Janet would be remembered as the family’s biggest success. It’s hard for some people to remember this now but in 1986, her career exploded onto the scene and it never let up. Her album “Control” boasted 5 top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 with “When I Think of You” being her first number one. And 1989’s “Rhythm Nation 1814” was even bigger. It had seven top 10 hits, four of them going to number one and none of them charting below number four. That is insane. The only other person to put up that kind of success was her brother Michael.
Each of her subsequent albums, “Janet,” “The Velvet Rope,” and “All For You,” threw at least one more number one hit into her discography. In 2000 she also co-starred in The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps and had a number one single off of the soundtrack. So rolling into 2003 she was still finding success left and right. The Super Bowl controversy torpedoed that. Her 2004 album, “Damita Jo” was her first record since 1984’s “Dream Street” not to produce a top 40 hit. Sure, every pop star eventually has a fall of, but you don’t normally see it happen quite like this.
The Fall Off and The Future
She still had a couple hits left in her, but they didn’t rise through the charts like her other output. “Call on Me” hit number 25 in in 2006 and 2007’s “Feedback” worked it’s way up to number 19. The album sales were dropping hard and fast. “All For You,” released before the Super Bowl incident sold roughly 3 million copies in the US alone. “Damita Jo” sold one third of that. Subsequent releases sold even less. The one thing that has been strong for her has been her tours. She still puts on one hell of a show and has maintained a consistent draw of attendees. Her 2023 – 2024 ranks as one of her most successful in terms of ticket sales.
Amidst all that she tried her hand at acting in more projects. Tyler Perry cast her in both Why Did I Get Married? films in addition to 2010’s For Colored Girls. She also has a major personal event happen at the age of 50 when she gave birth to her son, Eissa Al Mana. What she lost in album sales and charting singles, she found elsewhere in personal blessings and other projects.
Janet Jackson deserved better. American culture and bizarrely hypocritical puritanism sank her career. Even with all the controversy surrounding Michael and the allegations against him, his career is still better remembered than Janet’s. The world has either forgiven him or refused to acknowledge the troubling allegations and behavior he expressed. And even if he honestly didn’t do anything in appropriate, neither did Janet. Yet here we are having to remind ourselves of all she accomplished. She deserved better from us.
