American singer-songwriter, dancer and actress Janet Damita Jo Jackson was born 58 years ago in Gary, Indiana, is divorced and has a son. She is the youngest sister of the late famous singer Michael Jackson.
Janet comes from a family of musicians, as her dad played the guitar whilst her mum played the piano and clarinet. Her brothers formed the group ‘Jackson 5’ in 1964 and performed locally and five years later, they enjoyed their first number one hit. Initially, Janet wished to pursue a career as an entertainment lawyer or horse racing jockey, however, she changed her mind after recording herself and instead embarked on an entertainment career.
When she was 7 years old, Janet and her sisters performed in a Las Vegas hotel casino and in 1976, debuted as an actress in the variety show ‘The Jacksons’. For the rest of the 70s and early 80s, she had roles in other TV shows namely ‘Good Times’, ‘A New Kind of Family’, ‘Diff’rent Strokes’ and ‘Fame’.
With her dad’s help who was also her manager, Janet signed a record contract at 15 years old and went on to release her debut album in 1982. A second followed 2 years later, featuring the single ‘Don’t stand another Chance’ which reached number 9 on the Billboard R & B singles chart.
Afterwards, Janet decided to end business with her family and sought different producers. Her third album came out in 1986 and was an instant success, so much so that it went to first place on the charts. It included 5 Top 5 singles i.e. ‘What have you done for me Lately’, ‘Nasty’, ‘When I think of You’, ‘Control’ and ‘Let’s wait Awhile’. In late 1989, her fourth album was released and like its previous one was very successful and rendered Janet more and more popular.
Since 1990 to date, Janet had 7 more studio albums and 46 singles, plus other single appearances, promotional singles and tracks with other artists. She is considered as one of the best-selling artists with sales of more than 100 million records worldwide.
During her career so far, Janet received an impressive 233 awards out of 470 nominations. These include 23 BMI Pop 11 Billboard Music, 11 American Music, 10 MTV Video Music, 5 Grammy and 9 Guinness Book of World Records, amongst many, many others. She was also inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as well as received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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