Janet Jackson doc revisits debacle
Exposed on America’s biggest stage and then stripped of her career.
“Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson,” the latest installment of the Fx/hulu documentary series, “The New York Times Presents” (which aired Friday night on FX and is now streaming on Hulu), revisits the moment when Justin Timberlake exposed Jackson’s nipple during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show and resulting backlash aimed disproportionately at Jackson.
The new doc comes on the heels of the abolition of Britney Spears’ 13-year restrictive conservatorship examined in a previous two-episode installment of the series. Although the filmmakers’ goal – redemption for Jackson – is less measurable than #Freebritney – it also magnifies the mistreatment of a pop icon. Both projects also point fingers at Timberlake, who was criticized in February’s “Framing Britney Spears” for his public mishandling of their split and comments about their sex life, contradicting Spears’ former declaration that she wanted to remain a virgin until marriage.
On Feb. 1, 2004, before Tom Brady clinched his second Super Bowl victory with the New England Patriots, Jackson took the stage at Houston’s Reliant Stadium. Sean “Diddy” Combs, Nelly and Kid Rock also performed and Jackson closed the show with Timberlake, 15 months after he released his first solo album – an attempt to establish himself outside of boy band ’N Sync. Jackson grinded on Timberlake, who sang “Rock Your Body” and followed Jackson around the stage. When he crooned, “Bet I’ll have you naked by the end of this song,” he ran his hand up her corset, pulled the cup and bared her breast to an average of nearly 90 million viewers watching the CBS broadcast.
“Malfunction” offers few new insights about what happened during the Mtvproduced halftime show and whether the exposure was intentional.
It reiterates what Jackson, now 55, and Timberlake, 40, said at the time: that the slip was an accident. The halftime show’s director, Beth Mccarthy-miller, recalls her stage manager telling her Jackson cried after the performance.
Salli Frattini, a former MTV executive who produced the segment, remembers that “Janet fled” immediately after the performance, and couldn’t be reached by phone. Frattini asked Timberlake, who had stuck around, what occurred. “He’s like, ‘That was never meant to happen,’ ” she says. “He was very apologetic. He manned up.”
But Frattini isn’t convinced what happened was entirely an accident. “My instincts told me that there was a private conversation between wardrobe stylist and artist (Jackson), where someone thought this would be a good idea. And it backfired.”
In footage from an interview with “Entertainment Tonight,” Timberlake says he was told Jackson’s team wanted to reveal Jackson’s red bra beneath her corset. Jackson has previously confirmed this. (Producers have said they were unaware of plans to tear away any clothing.) Timberlake told “ET” they didn’t really have time to rehearse the move, and the exposure left him shocked. “I don’t feel like I need publicity like this,” he said, “and I wouldn’t want to be involved with a stunt, especially something of this magnitude.”
In a 2006 sit-down on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” Jackson reluctantly conceded that she felt hung out to dry by Timberlake over his remarks amid the fallout.