Janet Jackson is an icon – here’s why.

During a televised Superbowl 2004 half-time performance, Justin Timberlake exposed Janet Jackson’s breast to a huge live TV audience for nine sixteenths of a second. This brief moment - nicknamed 'Nipplegate' - derailed Jackson’s career, while Timberlake’s thrived.

In the run-up to Nine Sixteenths visiting Warwick Arts Centre, on Thursday 12 February 2026, Paula Varjack recalls what Janet Jackson meant to her, and some of her biggest hits...

"When I was child and teenager, Janet Jackson was an icon I especially looked up to. She was an innovator in the early days of MTV era music video, with a completely different aesthetic and tone for each album, each music video even.”

"From the time she released Control (1986), she projected a narrative of an artist who was doing things on her terms, with a team of people she enjoyed collaborating with. But also, she had this air of being fun to be around, playful, kind and sweet.”

"She was totally unlike any other pop artist I remember at the time, and the first pop artist I remember seeing on MTV who was a black woman. I think as much as she was celebrated and admired, she still feels somehow underrated in comparison to other pop icons of the era like Madonna, and yet she was so influential. Oh, and of course, she was and is incredibly hot! She was always unafraid to sing lyrics that were open and frank about her sexuality and sensuality and was an outspoken ally to the queer community from very early on.”

"The interesting thing about this period is that it's a time for me when music is inseparable from music video. I started watching MTV alongside my teenage cousin when I was very little, so as an artform it made a big imprint on me, a formative one.”

"Favourite Janet Jackson music videos though, there are so many! I don’t think she’s ever made a bad one!”

See Paula Varjack: Nine Sixteenths on Thursday 12 February 2026. Buy tickets!