“In 2017, Janet Jackson invited a documentary film crew on her eighth concert tour. They followed her for the next five years.” And with …
“In 2017, Janet Jackson invited a documentary film crew on her eighth concert tour. They followed her for the next five years.” And with that, Janet Jackson (Lifetime) sets the stage for its revealing journey through the enigmatic singer’s life and a career that spans four decades in show business. Janet Jackson airs in four parts over two nights on Lifetime. Opening Shot: An aerial shot of Gary, Indiana, the Jackson family’s hometown. A procession of black SUVs ferries Janet Jackson through the streets to her childhood home – she says she’s returning to the city for the first time since she was eight years old. The Gist: Janet Jackson combines five years of access to the famously press-shy singer and performer by documentary director Ben Hirsch and his crew with archival footage, media clips, and interviews with family members, industry peers, and entertainment luminaries. It was time to tell her story her way, says the woman who redefined her career with the 14X platinum 1986 album Control. But her story is forever linked to the legacy of her hard-driving father Joseph and his shepherding of the Jackson children’s careers, and it’s that legacy that the first episode of this four-part doc attempts to unpack. The elder Jackson was a strict disciplinarian, but as Janet and older brother Tito tell it, it was his determination that fueled the Jackson Five’s ascendance and the family’s exodus from Gary. “Where we came from and where we are now,” Janet says, “We owe so much to my father.” But she also understands how that determination robbed her. “Growing up, I feel like I didn’t experience my father the way I wanted to, the way I saw other kids experiencing their father.” With success, the Jackson family relocated to Los Angeles. Entertainers from Bing Crosby to Diana Ross partied at their house, and pretty soon Joseph had installed Janet in showbiz, too.
