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Janet Dishes With Oprah About "Nipplegate"

Sure, she has a new album coming out, but let's admit it: What we really wanna know about Janet Jackson is, how she's holding up since her infamous Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction"?

The pop star, who has kept quiet on the subject since the uproar immediately following the 2004 Super Bowl, finally opened up about "Nipplegate" with her old pal Oprah Winfrey. Making an appearance on Oprah's daytime talk show, Jackson admitted that she still hasn't spoken to Justin Timberlake about the incident, and holds him partially responsible for letting her take most of the flak for it.

"We haven't spoken," she said when Winfrey asked her about Timberlake. "He has reached out to speak with me....I consider him a friend, and I'm very loyal, and friendship is very important to me. [But] certain things you just don't do to friends.... In my own time, I'll give him a call."

When the daytime diva asked Jackson point-blank whether she felt like Timberlake had left her hanging after the incident, she replied, "To a certain degree, yeah."

Jackson released a new album, Damita Jo, less than two months after the Super Bowl halftime show at which Timberlake accidentally ripped off part of Jackson's top, exposing her breast on network TV. Because of that timing, Jackson was forced to endure questions about the incident while she was out publicizing her album, while Timberlake, who was between albums, had the luxury of retreating from the spotlight.

Since then, JT has admitted that he probably should have done more to deflect criticism from Jackson. "If there was something I could have done in her defense that was more than I realized then, I would have," he recently told MTV. "I probably got 10 percent of the blame."

The incident, which widely came to be known as "Nipplegate" -- or as the "wardrobe malfunction," after a memorable term Timberlake used to explain it -- eventually resulted in the Federal Communications Commission fining CBS $550,000 for allowing the exposed breast to go out over the air.

During her Oprah appearance, Jackson maintained that the magnitude of the whole "Nipplegate" uproar was still strange to her.

"So much more important things were going on in the world. And the focus was on my breast? That didn't make any sense to me."

--The ARTISTdirect Staff
09.26.06