True You (4 page)

Sometimes after school I’d go with friends to their homes. I was amazed that they were not allowed to raid the refrigerator. Their moms left precise instructions with the housekeeper about what could and could not be consumed by the kids. That seemed so strange to me—they actually had to
ask
for food.

Meanwhile, I was consuming whatever I liked, and I liked almost everything. And because our household was run on the unspoken principle of self-reliance, I kept relying on my own cooking instincts.

Paradoxically, I loved to eat but felt that I didn’t deserve to eat. The name-calling made me self-conscious about my size, and so I fell into that same pattern.

In my crazy head I heard that old familiar voice saying, “You’re fat. You’ve got to move away from food. You shouldn’t eat a thing.”

That voice led to a skimpy lunch or no lunch.

A school friend’s father owned a chain of McDonald’s. After a field trip, our entire class went to their home and were surprised with food from one of their stores. You can’t imagine how excited I was. I knew the food was fattening, but I couldn’t pass up a hot Big Mac and french fries. It meant I could be like the rest of the kids in my class. I ate the hamburger and fries; I drank a milk shake. I felt normal; I felt good. But the next day I was back to skipping lunch at school.

By the time I got home I was famished and wound up staring at a huge sweet potato pie.

First voice:
“Eat it.”

Second voice:
“Don’t touch it.”

First voice:
“You know you want it.”

Second voice:
“You know you’re fat.”

First voice:
“You know how good it’ll taste.”

Second voice:
“You know how you’ll get fatter.”

First voice:
“Fatter doesn’t matter.”

Second voice:
“The fatter, the uglier.”

First voice:
“You’ll never be as pretty as Rebbie, so you might as well eat the pie.”

Second voice:
“Resist.”

First voice:
“Give in.”

Second voice:
“Don’t.”

First voice:
“Do.”

I did.

I ate the majority of the delicious pie. I was stuck in an argument between two voices that I couldn’t win. The result was a feeling of emotional defeat. I lost.

Food was an enemy, food was a friend, food was comfort. And often that comfort came in the form of the person preparing the food, whether it be mother or my grandmother.

I had a strong emotional connection to my grandmother Crystal Lee. We called her Grandmama, and she was extraordinary. She carried a big smile and a mouth full of teeth. We always knew when she arrived because her voice bounced off the walls. You could hear her from the other end of the block. Even our parrot would start screaming “Grandma!” the minute she walked in.

We had housekeepers who were good cooks. As I said, Mother was a superb cook, but when Grandmama was around, she ruled. The kitchen was her kingdom, and you were lucky if she asked you to help. There was food everywhere, all made from scratch—apple pie, blueberry cobbler, peach cobbler. You name it.

Jermaine liked German chocolate cake and pineapple upside-down cake, so Grandmama and Mother made sure to have them on hand. Mike liked carrot cake, and so that was definitely on the menu, too. Grandmama made the best liver and onions. I was the kind of kid who ate anything and everything—candied yams, Cornish hens, greens with ham hocks, salmon croquettes, deep-fried catfish, deep-fried chicken, turkey chili, black-eyed peas, pinto beans. Grandmama cooked in the Southern style, as did Mother, who came from Alabama, as well as my father, who came from Arkansas.

All this meant mountains of sugar, tons of butter, and oceans of salt. Sitting on that swivel stool, watching Grandmama cook, I took it all in—and helped. I loved chopping the vegetables, kneading the dough, and baking the biscuits. As I helped, I sampled everything.

Food made me feel great. Food was the symbol and substance of the care being offered; food was everything warm and wonderful.

Grandmama not only cared enough to feed me, but was also patient enough to teach me to cook. We all fooled around in the kitchen. My father liked to roast peanuts, and Mike, Randy, and I made caramel apples and ice cream.

Grandmama laid the foundation for me in the kitchen.

Again, it was the push and pull. Those internal voices fighting against one another, together with my already twisted view of myself and my beauty, led me down the wrong path in terms of body image and self-esteem.

Maybe it was the teasing, maybe it was that sense of perfectionism that gets ingrained in so many kids—but whatever it was, I got the message early: I was chubby. I was bloated. I had curves in the wrong places. My body was out of whack. It’s strange, but when I look back at my kid pictures, I don’t see an overweight little girl. I look perfectly normal. But the word
normal
was never used to describe me. I didn’t feel normal. I felt fat.

My friend who stutters remembers that he felt stupid because others—his classmates and even some of his teachers—associated his impediment with a dimwit. He saw the world as nearly all children do: through the eyes of others. My opinion of myself—even my literal vision of myself—was determined by how I
thought
others perceived me. I emphasize “thought” because I really didn’t know. My brother Mike may not have seen me as fat; he was just teasing. But I took his teasing to heart. I embraced it, internalized it, and, without knowing it, became tormented by it for years to come.

Kids are easily injured. Kids are sensitive. Kids keep secrets. I kept my feelings of inadequacy from everyone, so there was no way my parents could have reassured me and told me I was fine the way I was, that I didn’t have to reshape my body or conform to an image that the white culture found acceptable. But my parents, God bless them, had tremendous challenges of their own. They had worked tirelessly to keep nine kids off the street, feed
them, educate them, and develop their natural talents. My parents were overwhelmed with responsibilities. They had to nurture their instinctive strategies for survival, a work ethic for themselves and their children. My parents were about discipline, focus, and, in the case of my mother, extraordinary loving care.

I identify with children, teens, young adults, with anyone whose parents, no matter how loving, don’t have the psychological insight to help them through their crises. If we have an understanding sibling, an uncle, an aunt, a grandmother, a surrogate mom or dad who can reassure us that we don’t have to measure up to someone else’s standard—that’s beautiful. If we don’t have such a person in our lives, my hope is that we can find that voice deep inside us, a voice that lets us know that we are who we are. Different. Unique. Worthwhile. God’s child.

We don’t need to compare. We just need to be.

With my beloved big brother Mike.

A
t the memorial service for Michael, my brother Jermaine sang “Smile,” a song written by Charlie Chaplin and beloved the world over. Jermaine sang it beautifully. Mike loved the song, too, and recorded an exquisite version of it. “Smile” resonates with all
the Jackson children, because it captures not only the sweetness of music—and music’s power to heal—but also the obligation we have always felt as entertainers, from the earliest age, to place the audience’s need to be entertained above whatever pain we might be experiencing.

I can’t describe our pain in losing our brother, or the pain of his children in losing their father, or the pain of my parents in losing their son. I still have not seen the film
This Is It.
I still can’t watch any of his videos or listen to his music. I’m certain that one day I’ll again be able to enjoy the miraculous sound of his voice and the marvelous sight of his dancing, but that day has not yet arrived. The mourning continues.

As Jermaine sang “Smile,” I thought it was the perfect anthem to remember our brother by. Michael made us smile, even when his heart was breaking.

I, too, was taught to always smile, and yet, ironically, most of my life I never liked my smile. It felt fraudulent. I smiled not because I was happy but because I adopted the message of the song that said “Light up your face with gladness, / Hide every trace of sadness.”

I remember seeing Jack Nicholson as the Joker in
Batman
and thinking,
Wow, when he smiles I can see all the way to the back of his throat. That’s what my smile looks like. My smile is hideous.
Because I didn’t like my full smile, I often just grinned. In contrast to Grandmama’s beautiful smile, my smile felt forced.

Later in life, my friend and producer Jimmy Jam was at a video shoot of mine. Things weren’t going well, and I expressed my anxiety.

“I understand, Janet,” said Jimmy. “But forget the problems and just smile.”

“Why would I do that?” I asked. “My smile is not my best feature.”

“What!” Jimmy countered. “Are you crazy? People
love
your smile.”

“They do?”

“No one’s ever told you that?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m telling you. Smile, girl. Just smile.”

My siblings and I grew up with the belief that you don’t let people know what is going on inside. We didn’t carry our problems onstage. Fans paid hard-earned money to watch us perform, and our job was to make them happy. End of story.

My early life as a performer was rooted in this unspoken belief—suppress your feelings.

As a child, I shot an ad for Disney. They put me in Mouse-keteer ears and asked me to smile. I did. I haven’t seen that photograph since, and my sincere hope is that it has disappeared forever.

That day, because I was missing schoolwork, I was given a tutor. At the time I was not in the advanced reading group at school, and so I had a bit of a complex about it. I loved to read, but was never a fast reader. In contrast, I saw my siblings as brilliant students who always got top grades. When my mother was in school, she had earned straight A’s. I felt inadequate. And even though as a small child I dreamed of going to college, I was afraid
that I was not college material. How could I ever comprehend books that were two or three hundred pages long? I expressed my fears to the tutor, who in turn told my mother.

Mother was upset that I had confided in a stranger. My confession may well have embarrassed her. Mother is a proud and private woman who feels that whatever is happening within the family should remain within the family. I apologized for talking too openly to the tutor. Again, I learned my lesson, but at what cost?

I felt bad, because I wanted so very much to please my mother—and I hadn’t. She was justifiably proud that her young daughter had been chosen to do this advertisement. I had competed against hundreds of other kids, and I had succeeded. Why couldn’t I just be happy with that success and keep whatever confusion I might have been feeling to myself? From then on, I vowed that I would do just that.

My need to please others was immense and I suspect that the same is true for most kids. Whether we’re competing to be in an advertisement, or participating in a spelling bee or beauty contest, we want to win, not so much for ourselves but for others, and especially our parents.

We don’t know that love is something that already exists within; we act like it has to be earned. Our attitude:
If we give pleasure to others, we’ll get love for ourselves
. But except for those brief moments when the world awards us, that approach makes us miserable.

When I first started performing at age seven, I had silently accepted that my duty was to please others. Naturally, I would enter into the family business, where my brothers had succeeded on a
spectacular level. Although it was never stated, the same degree of success was expected of me.

My brother Mike helped prepare me with my lines, my singing, and my little dance routine. My brother Randy was my partner. We were part of the show at the MGM in Las Vegas. We pretended to be an adult couple. Randy was Sonny and I was dressed up like Cher. We sang “I Got You Babe” and at the end, I was handed a black doll to represent their daughter Chastity. In another skit, I wore a gown and struck a sexy pose like Mae West, mouthing her famous line, “Why don’t you come up and see me sometime?” The audience howled.