Janet Jackson Biography

NAME: Janet Jackson

OCCUPATION: Singer

BIRTH DATE: May 16, 1966 (Age: 45)

PLACE OF BIRTH: Gary, Indiana

ZODIAC SIGN: Taurus

Singer, songwriter, actress. Born May 16, 1966, in Gary, Indiana. The youngest of nine children born to Joseph Walter Jackson and his wife, Katherine, Jackson grew up in the affluence of a show business family.

Her five brothers—Jackie, Tito, Marlon, Jermaine, and Michael—signed a contract with Motown Records in 1968 and would go on to rule the charts as The Jackson Five, with such hits as "I Want You Back," "Stop, the Love You Save," "ABC," and "Dancing Machine."

In late 1969, Jackson took her daughters Rebbie, LaToya, and Janet, and her youngest son, Randy, to join her husband in Los Angeles, where they had moved to further the band's career. (Tito's twin brother, Brandon, had died within 24 hours of the twins' premature birth in 1957.)

The Jackson children were raised in the Jehovah's Witness faith, as Katherine Jackson had been baptized as a Jehovah's Witness in 1963. LaToya Jackson famously chronicled their tumultuous childhood—including charges of physical and sexual abuse by Joseph Jackson—in her tell-all autobiography, but Janet and others of her siblings disputed LaToya's account. The tensions within the family certainly increased on account of Michael Jackson's emergence as a solo artist and a superstar beginning in the early 1970s.

Janet was determined to make this happen again. She then recorded "Rhythm Nation 1814". This time it sold 9 million copies in the U.S. - a bigger hit than "Control"! She happened to fall in love with a dancer named René Elizondo, Jr. from one of her sister's, LaToya Jackson's music video and later secretly married him in March of 1991. That same year she got a star on the Hollywood walk of fame! Janet went to work on her fifth album simply called "Janet.". It was her biggest hit to date selling over 10 million copies in the U.S. alone and includes her biggest hit single to date, "That's The Way Love Goes". Two years later she released a Greatest Hits album "Design of a Decade" which included two new hits "Runaway", and "Twenty-Foreplay". Her seventh album "The Velvet Rope" clarified her pop culture status.