Musician, actor, and style icon Janet Jackson has been open about her views in recent years, with her 2017 State of the World tour beginning with a video statement of her politics. “We will not be silent. LGBTQ rights. Peace not war. Black Lives Matter. Immigrants are welcome. Liberty and justice for all,” the screens at tour stadiums read. “Prejudice: No! Ignorance: No! Bigotry: No! Illiteracy: No!” the message continued.
Those values were at odds with the messages presented by then-president Donald Trump, whose own values appear to have grown even further from those tenets during his current campaign to retake the White House. It appears that Jackson’s values might also have shifted, at least when it comes to her list of non-negotiables.
The 58-year-old singer’s 1986 song, “Nasty,” received an ironic bump in 2016 when Trump used that word against Democratic contender Hillary Clinton during that election cycle’s presidential debate. That was a politics-meets-pop-culture moment that almost seems quaint now, given Trump’s reported fondness, these days, for referring to his Democratic opponent, vice-president Kamala Harris, as a “bitch.” (Sadly for “Bitch” singer Meredith Brooks, the American public seems less inclined to view Trump’s insults as a silly joke this time around.)
Janet Jackson fans will likely be relieved to learn that the megastar didn’t use language that harsh to describe Harris. But her framing of a possible Harris presidency wasn’t terribly supportive, either. In an interview published Saturday by the Guardian, the “Pleasure Principle” singer perpetuated one of the most ignorant falsehoods presented during this Idiocracy-leaning presidential election: the lie that Harris has been deceptive about her race.
It’s clear from reading the conversation that even reporter Nosheen Iqbal was nonplussed. According to the journalist (who also hosts the Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast), she only asked Jackson about Harris due to the social justice messages Jackson has presented in work going back to her groundbreaking Rhythm Nation album in 1989. “Well, you know what they supposedly said?” Jackson responded. “She’s not black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian.”
It’s a claim that echoes the one first made by Trump in July, when he participated in an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists. At that event, Trump said of Harris that “She was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage.”
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black,” Trump falsely continued regarding the vice-president, who has never concealed her identity as the daughter of Donald J. Harris, her Black, Jamaican American father, and mother Shyamala Gopalan, who came to the U.S. from India in 1958.
“So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?” Trump continued from the NABJ stage in July. “She was Indian all the way, and all of a sudden, she made a turn and she became a Black person.”
Though nearly every journalistic outlet fact-checked Trump’s remarks that day, it appears that the message didn’t reach Jackson, who actually expanded on Trump’s falsehoods when speaking with Iqbal. “Her father’s white. That’s what I was told. I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days,” Jackson said when Iqbal corrected her. “I was told that they discovered her father was white.”
It’s unclear who the “they” is that Jackson referred to, nor did she cite a source for the false claim about Harris’s father. Representatives for Jackson have not responded to Vanity Fair’s request for clarification.
As Iqbal wrote, “The people who are most vocal in questioning the facts of Harris’s identity tend to be hardcore QAnon-adjacent, Trump-loving conspiracy theorists,” but as she doesn’t “think Jackson falls into that camp,” one has to “wonder what the algorithms are serving her.” But just hours after the Guardian interview was published, Jackson returned to the headlines for another reason: her penthouse apartment is allegedly infested with black mold, a fungal growth that experts say can cause neurological issues including memory loss, confusion, and cognitive impairments.
According to the Daily Mail, Jackson recently moved out of her $26,000/month residence in London’s Chelsea Barracks after finding the toxic substance, after living in the flat “for several years.” The Mail reports that she’s now mulling a return to America, which is surprising given what else she had to say about the aftermath of the upcoming election. “I think either way it goes is going to be mayhem,” Jackson said, then repeated herself. “I think there might be mayhem either way it goes. But we’ll have to see.”
Janet Jackson, through her manager, apologized for her comments in an interview that published Saturday where the singer questioned whether Vice President Kamala Harris was Black, saying her controversial remarks were “based on misinformation.”
In The Guardian interview, when asked about the prospect of having the first-ever Black and female president after Election Day, Jackson said of Harris, “Well, you know what they supposedly said? She’s not Black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian.”
Jackson added that, “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.” (Harris’ father, Donald J. Harris, is Black, was born in Browns Town, Jamaica, and and grew up in Jamaica.)
The singer’s comments — Jackson also predicted “mayhem” after Election Day regardless of the winner — sparked instantaneous uproar on social media, where fans questioned who the “they” is that has been telling Jackson erroneous information, as well as the singer’s uninformed opinion about candidate.
In a statement Sunday to Buzzfeed, Jackson’s manager Mo Elmasri said the singer was sorry about her Guardian comments — which were made “based on misinformation” — while adding that Jackson now acknowledges that Harris is of Black and Indian descent.
“[Jackson] deeply respects Vice President Kamala Harris and her accomplishments as a Black and Indian woman,” Elmasri’s statement said. “Janet apologizes for any confusion caused and acknowledges the importance of accurate representation in public discourse.”
Elmasri added, “We appreciate the opportunity to address this and will remain committed to promoting unity.”
Singer Janet Jackson apologized through a representative for claiming Vice President Kamala Harris, who is Black, is “not Black.”
“She’s not Black,” said Jackson, in an interview with The Guardian newspaper published Saturday. “That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian. 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.”
Harris, of course, is not half-white and is very much Black. Her father is Donald Harris, a Jamaican-American economist who was the first Black scholar to receive a tenured position at Stanford’s economics department.
Harris, who graduated from leading historically Black university Howard, has frequently spoken about her Black identity in politics. She also once joked, when asked if she’d ever smoked marijuana, “Half my family’s from Jamaica, are you kidding me?”
She is also Indian. Her late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a medical scientist who worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was originally from Chennai.
A spokesperson for Jackson told BuzzFeed her comments were “based on misinformation.”
“She deeply respects Vice President Kamala Harris and her accomplishments as a Black and Indian woman,” the spokesperson added. “Janet apologizes for any confusion caused and acknowledges the importance of accurate representation in public discourse. We appreciate the opportunity to address this and will remain committed to promoting unity.”
Jackson’s rep didn’t explain how that information came to her.
Former president Donald Trump—Harris’ opponent in this year’s presidential election—has polluted the public conversation about Harris’ race, making false claims that Harris misled voters about her background
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black,” Trump told the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago last month. “I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
At least Janet Jackson now knows the answer is “both.”
Musician Janet Jackson questioned Vice President Kamala Harris’s ethnicity, stating that she had heard Harris is “not black” and instead is of Indian descent.
Jackson, the sister of the late Michael Jackson, was promoting her European tour in an interview when she was asked about the 2024 election and her thoughts about the prospect of the United States electing its first female black president. This prompted Jackson to say she had heard that Harris is not black, adding, “That’s what I heard, that she’s Indian.”
The interviewer clarified that the vice president is of both black and Indian descent.
“Her father’s white. That’s what I was told,” Jackson said to the Guardian. “I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days. I was told that they discovered her father was white.”
Harris’s father is of Jamaican descent while her mother is Indian, with the vice president stating she was raised to embrace both identities. Prior to becoming vice president, Harris attended Howard University, a historically black college in Washington, D.C., and was also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus when working as the junior senator from California.
Jackson was then questioned if the U.S. is ready for Harris to serve as president, with the musician responding that she “truthfully” does not know.
“I think there might be mayhem,” she falters. “Either way it goes, but we’ll have to see.”
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The debate on Harris’s ethnicity started back in late-July when former President Donald Trump questioned her race, arguing Harris had been identifying as black when “she was always of Indian heritage.” Trump claimed she had identified as Indian for most of her life, “then all of a sudden, she made a turn” and identified as African-American.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) has defended Trump’s comments, citing how the Associated Press wrote an article in 2016 referring to Harris as the first Indian woman to win a Senate seat.
