Michael Jackson trusted Janet so much that he wanted her to care for his children if anything happened to him.
Not everyone is blessed with a beautiful bond with their siblings. For the lucky few, their siblings are the first friends they had and they become pillars of support for life. These bonds can be stronger when siblings have been through tough times together. They share each other's pain and that can be a healing process. Michael (MJ) and Janet Jackson had one of those sibling bonds that was based on complete trust.
A year after MJ's death, Janet opened up on The Oprah Winfrey Show to talk about how concerned she had been about his health. He died of a cardiac arrest at the age of 50 after overdosing on prescription medicines. The physician who had prescribed those to him was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter by a jury in Los Angeles two years after the Thriller singer's death. The King of Pop had been rehearsing for performance even a day before he died, according to BBC. The singer only wanted to get a good night's sleep but the drugs closed his eyes forever.
Janet saw him a month before he died at a party she had thrown for their parents. "He was thin then, and we knew that he had a problem; we all did," she told Oprah Winfrey, as per CNN. "People think we were in denial but we weren't. We tried intervention several times," she said. "The last time we were together, he'd laugh so hard, he'd just start crying," she told ABC News.
The Any Time, Any Place singer added that she she couldn't believe he was gone. "There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about it -- that all of us in the family don't think about it -- every single day," she said as per CNN.
For her, the pain of losing her big brother was harder because even though she was the youngest of the nine Jackson siblings, she was used to taking care of him. A heartbroken Janet didn't watch TV or read a newspaper for two months after her brother's sudden died to stay away from hurting herself further.
"I'd, I'd just like to say that to you, Michael is an icon. To us, Michael is family," the pop star said, as per ABC News. "And he will forever live in all of our hearts."
From a young age, she was used to of spending a lot of time with her famous brother, who was initially part of Jackson 5. From the time she was 14, it was her job to take care of her brother, even though he was eight years older than her. "I would shop for him. I washed his clothes and cleaned his room. When mother [Katherine] would go out of town, she'd say, 'I'm leaving you in charge. Take care of Michael'," she said.
She got the chance to see the popstar up close and she was one of the first ones who knew that he loved clothes that stood out. For the 25th Anniversary of Motown special, Michael was set to perform and for that, he took his famous sparkly black jacket from his mother's closet.
"If it was shiny, if it had any kind of bling, he loved it," Janet said. However, his shoes were always worn down because he danced so much. "He would wear his shoes all the way down," remembered Janet. "His penny loafers would have huge holes in the bottom."
The siblings made a music video together in 1995 for the song Scream and she recalled about their time when making it. "We had so much fun back then. We would organize our days together."
MJ reportedly wanted Janet to raise his three children, with whom he was very close, if anything happened to him. He had been working on a new will that would have put her in charge. The first will had assigned his mother, Katherine, who was then 79, as their guardian.
"Ultimately, he wanted Janet to look after the children, with help from his mother Katherine, and was planning to draft a new will to reflect those wishes. He trusted Janet implicitly," a source said, as per DigitalSpy. "He wanted her to make sure the children would be loved and cared for in the same way he was raising them. She told him, of course, she would."
References:
https://www.digitalspy.com/showbiz/michael-jackson-1958-2009/a165375/jackson-wanted-janet-to-look-after-kids/
https://edition.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/02/janet.jackson.oprah/index.html
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/janet-jackson-opens-losing-michael/story?id=8521491
https://www.digitalspy.com/showbiz/michael-jackson-1958-2009/a165375/jackson-wanted-janet-to-look-after-kids/
