Janet Jackson has “nothing” in her house that marks her career accomplishments.
The ‘Rhythm Nation’ hitmaker has won a string of awards and sold millions of records in her lengthy career but she keeps her accolades “in storage” and doesn’t even have any photos of herself in action.
She told the Guardian newspaper’s Saturday magazine: “You know what, I really don’t focus on that. I do what I do because I love it. I get so much fulfilment from it, but not one award is in my house, nor has there ever been.”
Asked where her platinum discs are, she added: “It sounds so bad, but they’re all in storage.
“Nothing in my house is to do with entertainment and me. No shot of me performing, none of that, just photographs of me with my baby and family … Mind you, growing up in my parents’ house with my brothers, all across the walls there were the gold albums. The platinum albums. The covers.
“Maybe that’s why? Not to rebel against it, just … I grew up with this. I don’t need to do this.”
The 58-year-old singer – who has seven-year-old son Eissa with ex-husband Wissam Al Mana – insisted she isn’t “embarrassed” by her success but she doesn’t need to constantly seek validation.
She said: “I don’t find it corny. It’s not even embarrassment.
“I just don’t need that to make me who I am. I don’t need to walk by and look at that every day and say, ‘You know what? I did that!’ That was my job.
“And I loved it. I know I have five Grammys. I know there’s an Oscar nomination. I know I sold 180m records.”
Janet is currently on her ‘Together Again’ European tour and she deliberately named it after her 1997 hit single because that was such a “fun” time for her.
She said: “I look back at all of it, but the 90s era and when I was a kid, that was the most fun. The whole 90s era, you never thought back then that it would come back around like this.
“I just think it’s so awesome for me to be here and experience the kids wearing the low-rise pants again, all the looks.”