Janet Jackson Told to Diet When She Was 11

Janet Jackson has been opening up lately, and now she has admitted that she began battling her weight when she was aged just 11-years-old. Janet claims that producers on the set of sitcom ‘Good Times’ told her that she needed to diet and loose weight, even though she wasn’t overweight to begin with. Janet commented:

“It’s been a tough road, a tough battle since I was very little and not feeling worthy. There were self-esteem issues, issues dealing with food stemming from when I was very, very young. Not feeling I was good enough as I was. I was told at a very young age on the show ‘Good Times’ that I needed to go on a diet. I was only, what, 11, 12? And I look back on those shows and I wasn’t a heavy kid. Some people can just brush it right off but others, they really internalise it. And that was me.”

Janet, who is now 44, has had fluctuating weight throughout her career. Appearing on Piers Morgan’s Tonight show, Janet revealed that she is an ‘emotional’ eater, but has now learned to control that:

“I’m not in denial in any way. I’ve never had someone say to me you’re addicted to food and maybe that’s what it is for me. I’ve never had anyone say that to me, but the way that I feel about it. It still is an issue for me. I was an emotional eater. I still am. I’ve learned how to handle certain issues and not to run to that for comfort. It’s just not about, ‘OK, how do you stop the eating?’ It’s deeper than that. There are issues behind that. You have to figure out what’s creating it first in order to figure out how to stop it.”

Janet also recently spoke about mourning her brother Michael – read it here.