Janet Jackson recently sat down with BBC, breaking down the upcoming UK leg of her “Together Again” tour while also making some light-hearted observations about her personal life -- namely, her very checkered and very public love life.
“How many times have I been married now?” she quipped in the interview. “Three, I think,” she answered while laughing. Jackson’s first marriage was to James DeBarge at just 18. The marriage was annulled less than a year after the two eloped.
As Jackson discussed in her eponymous 2022 documentary, DeBarge struggled with drug addiction, something that consumed her life at the time. “I was doing the TV show Fame at the time and I’d be late for work and hold up shooting,” she said to BBC, reportedly “wincing” at the memory. “I wasn’t being irresponsible. I just felt that [James] needed me more than the show.”
“I got spoken to a few times by the producers,” she added. “I’m not sure they were that fond of me.”
Jackson then married René Elizondo, Jr. from 1991 to 2003, and then Wissam Al Mana from 2012 to 2017. She shares a child, 7-year-old son Eissa, with Al Mana.
She opened up about motherhood as well in the interview: “Being a mum is the most beautiful thing,” she said. “I love every single minute of it.”
Jackson is currently in the midst of the second U.S. leg of her Together Again tour, which is set to embark on European dates this fall. When speaking of the warm reception her tour has received, she told BBC, “I’m just thankful that people are still interested in seeing me do this. I feel very blessed.”
Check out the full interview here.