She was married to DeBarge for a year back in the ’80s and firmly denies ever having his child, saying, “I could never keep a child away from James.”
The world is hearing much more from Janet Jackson thanks to the Pop icon’s new documentary. She comes from one of the most famous musical families in the world and has maintained a level of unprecedented privacy given her fame. Janet has been able to navigate her personal life away from the prying eyes of the public, and although her name has been involved in scandals, the singer has often decided not to comment on every piece of gossip.
A tale that has followed Jackson for decades is about the alleged secret baby she was rumored to have given birth to while married to singer James DeBarge. The pair wed in 1984 but the marriage ended by 1985 because of his drug addiction.
Jackson called DeBarge a “sweet guy” and dubbed their relationship “innocent,” but shared a story about their wedding night that was a foreshadowing of what was to come.
“When we got married and came back to the hotel he said, ‘OK, I’ll be right back,'” she said. “And I’m sitting in the hotel room in Grand Rapids, Michigan by myself, just eighteen, and for three hours, he never came back. I don’t know, maybe it’s this person in me that wants to help people subconsciously. When it comes to relationships, somehow I’m attracted to people that use drugs.”
“We would be rolling on the floor fighting for them. And that’s not a life for anyone,” she said, mentioning she would flush them down the toilet. “I sit and I say, ‘Were you stupid, were you dumb?’ But it wasn’t that. I cared so much for him, and I saw the good in him as well and I just wanted that to take precedence as opposed to this ugliness. ‘Cause I knew that he needed help. But I wasn’t the help that he needed.”
Later, there were rumors that she had a child that was being raised by one of her siblings. Janet denied the gossip and said she could never do something like that.
“A lot of the kids thought I was pregnant, ’cause I had gained weight, and I had started taking birth control pills,” she said. “And back then, you could pick up weight taking them, and that’s what happened to me. So that rumor started going around.”
“Back in the day they were saying that I had a child and I kept it secret,” Jackson added. “I could never keep a child away from James. How could I keep a child from their father? I could never do that, that’s not right.” She did, however, have a son with ex-husband Wissam Al Mana.
