The 55-year-old said she began to experience body image issues when she was 11. (Photo: Instagram/@janetjackson) Body image issues have plagued many people around the world, and in the recent past, many celebrities have talked about it so as to normalise conversations surrounding it. Janet Jackson is among them. The American singer-songwriter, in a new documentary, revealed that she was bullied by her brother Michael Jackson.
According to a report in The Sun, the 55-year-old said she began to experience body image issues when she was 11 and all through her teenage years, because her brother would fat-shame her.
“There were times when Mike used to tease me and call me names… ‘Pig, horse, slaughter hog, cow’. He would laugh about it and I’d laugh, too, but then there was somewhere down inside that it would hurt. When you have somebody say you’re too heavy, it affects you,” she was quoted as saying.
The singer made the shocking revelation in a four-part documentary series, which has been many years in the making. In it — the report states — the singer has also revealed that she is “an emotional eater”. “So, when I get stressed or something is really bothering me, it comforts me.”
It was during her role as an abandoned girl Penny on the US sitcom Good Times that she began to experience “weight issues and the way I looked at myself”. “I was developing at a very young age and I started getting a chest and they would bind it so I would look more flat-chested.”
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In addition to this, in an interview with Allure, Jackson said she had tried to cultivate body confidence, and that her 1993 album ‘Janet‘ was when she “reconsidered modesty”.
For the cover, she was topless, and the singer shared with the outlet that it was “an affirmation of control”, and about “about embracing me and trying to learn to love me for me, my body, all of that. Trying to feel comfortable in embracing that. Throwing myself in the lion’s den. Just going for it, wanting to do something different.”
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