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Janet Jackson was left feeling like anything but a “Smooth Criminal” after defending her pop superstar brother, Michael, during his 2005 trial on child molestation charges. Instead she just felt “Bad.”
The 55-year-old singer makes the candid confession in the two-part documentary, “Janet,” set to premiere on A&E and Lifetime on Jan. 28.
In an extended trailer for the special, released on Sunday, the documentary’s producers are heard asking Janet whether the allegations against Michael “affected her career wise.”
“Yeah… guilty by association,” the five-time Grammy winner bluntly replies, sporting a sad look on her face.
Janet publicly stood by her brother amid the highly publicized court case, where he was eventually acquitted on four counts of molesting a minor.
Michael died four years later in 2009, at the age of 50.
Back in 1993, Michael was also accused of sexually abusing 13-year-old Jordan Chandler at his Neverland Ranch. That case never went to trial, as Chandler’s father, Evan, accepted a $15 million settlement.
Janet again defended her brother against those allegations, saying in a 2016 documentary titled “Unmasked”: “Now if this really went on, do you think a father would accept money? Do you think that would make everything OK? It doesn’t make any sense. If that was my son, I don’t care if he gave me a billion dollars, I want to see you either behind bars or dead for doing that to my son.”
She added: “It’s crazy – the guy was after money – that is all he wanted.”
Michael faced further allegations that he sexually abused young boys in the 2019 documentary “Leaving Neverland.”
Janet remained tight-lipped in the wake of the documentary, with her nephew saying: “I think there is a fear as well to put more energy to it and more eyeballs to it. “That’s why my aunt [Janet] hasn’t said anything because she doesn’t want to make it any bigger.”
Several months later, she spoke out in defense of Michael saying she believes his legacy “will continue.”
“I love it when I see kids emulating him, when adults still listen to his music,” she told the Sunday Times.
“It just lets you know the impact that my family has had on the world. I hope I’m not sounding arrogant in any way — I’m just stating what is. It’s really all God’s doing, and I’m just thankful for that.”
Meanwhile, the forthcoming documentary “Janet” also examines the fallout from Janet’s 2004 Super Bowl performance with Justin Timberlake, in which he exposed her breast to the audience.
The trailer features an excerpt from a news report stating that Janet was banned from the Grammy Awards in the wake of the scandal.
“They build you up and then once you get there, they’re so quick to tear you down,” the singer is seen saying in the documentary’s trailer.
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