Janet Jackson

Janet Jackson (stylized as JANET JACKSON.) is a limited-run documentary television series produced by American singer and actress Janet Jackson and her brother Randy Jackson, directed by Benjamin Hirsch. The series was developed over a period of three years by Rick Murray at Workerbee Documentary Films who executive produced. The documentary series premiered 28 January 2022, with the first two episodes of the four-part series airing on Lifetime and A&E simultaneously in the United States. The next two episodes aired the following night, 29 January. On 29 January 2022, Jackson previewed a clip of a new song, "Luv I Luv", during the end credits of the last episode. The documentary premiered in the United Kingdom on Sky Documentaries and streaming service NOW on 31 January 2022. Conception and development In 2017, Jackson contacted English production company, Workerbee, to film footage of her on tour. Filming commenced that same year while Jackson was in the midst of her State of the World Tour. Producer Rick Murray explained, "We met Janet over five years ago. She lives in the UK a lot these days — she has family here — and through a joint person we both knew we were asked to go and cover some behind the scenes footage of one of her tours. I sent my best director, Ben [Hirsch], and I sort of said in his ear before he went … 'There's something bigger that we can do with Janet.' And we both love making movies, making feature documentaries, and we just thought there is a feature documentary here of her life that has not been told." Jackson sent Murray and Hirsch 7,000 tapes from her personal archive. "She recorded everything, from the rehearsals at the Super Bowl that no one had seen before, through to the recording of [the music video] 'Scream,' in the studio recording Rhythm Nation, and no one had seen these tapes before. … It took us weeks and months to go through them." The series was filmed over a period of five years. Episodes