Pop star Janet Jackson has not walked back some odd comments she made during an interview with a UK publication, repeating falsehoods promulgated in right-wing circles about Kamala Harris's race. And this has raised questions about what Jackson's motivations may be.
Janet Jackson gave an interview to The Guardian that was published last week, in which she talks about her legacy, about the infamous 2004 "Nipplegate" incident after which she says she was "culturally blacklisted," and motherhood. The interviewer notes an odd comment Jackson makes about child trafficking, and how it's become more prevalent, or at least, people weren't as aware of it in the past — ironic because of the many accusations against her brother Michael.
But what becomes the major pullquote comes late in the interview, when the topic of Kamala Harris comes up.
"Well, you know what they supposedly said?” Janet asks the interviewer, Nosheen Iqbal. "She’s not Black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian."
Iqbal notes, "She looks at me expectantly, perhaps assuming that I have Indian heritage."
"Well, she’s both," Iqbal says.
And Jackson doubles down. "Her father’s white. That’s what I was told. I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days... I was told that they discovered her father was white."
Then Jackson seemed to demur and when asked if America is ready for a woman of color to be president, Jackson says, "I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t want to answer that because I really, truthfully, don’t know. I think either way it goes is going to be mayhem."
The comments have now made international headlines, and TMZ went about trying to figure out of Jackson was just some QAnon or pro-Trump loon — Iqbal doesn't thinks so — or whether this was coming from some other point of origin.
Jackson hasn't been too forthright in her defenses of her brother — she said in a documentary that whatever people said about Michael, "he was my brother and I loved him," and in a BBC interview in July, she said she was still actively grieving for his loss.
A clip has resurfaced, possibly via TMZ and/or others, of Kamala Harris speaking as a legal expert to ABC News about MJ's case, back when she was district attorney of San Francisco in late 2004. In it, Harris does not comment on Michael Jackson's guilt or innocent, but only about how the testimony of children might persuade a jury.
"In general, the child will be able to recall and recollect some detail, the incident and that is persuasive to a jury, even if it is the only testimony that is available," Harris says.
The comment seems fairly innocuous, and not necessarily damning to MJ, but could this be the source of some beef Janet still feels and she was looking for a reason to discredit Harris or disown her as Black? It should be noted that Jackson's comment went even further than Donald Trump has in his own comments about Harris's race — he's never claimed she had a white father, which is patently untrue.
To make things stranger, Jackson has not tried to walk back her comments, and has not issued any apology. A person purporting to be her manager, Mo Elmasri, issued an apology on her behalf on Sunday, but Jackson's team has since disowned that apology and said Elmasri does not speak for her.
Harris's campaign has not commented.
And, weirdly, Whoopi Goldberg made some excuses for Janet on The View on Monday morning, saying that Jackson was grieving the recent death of her brother Tito, and that she never claimed to be a political animal or well versed in politics.
"She made a mistake," Goldberg said. "She was wrong. It happens. Anybody who says it doesn't happen to every one of us, multiracial or not, we all do it. So, okay, a little grace for the girl."
But if she made a mistake, why hasn't she acknowledged the mistake or apologized, given the uproar?
View co-host Ana Navarro called Jackson's comments "very irresponsible" and said she'd used the interview "carelessly, to spread misinformation."
Previously: Janet Jackson Called Out For Repeating Misinformation About Kamala Harris's Race
Top image: ABC News/Getty Images
