Janet Jackson Shares Surprising Revelation About Her Family Tree

As far as famous relatives go, Janet Jackson ’s family tree is *seriously* impressive.

While appearing on BBC’s Radio 2 Breakfast show on August 13, the “Control” singer, 58, made a shocking revelation about her family lineage, revealing that she is related to the one and only Stevie Wonder . “He’s our cousin,” she told host Scott Mills, who looked utterly baffled. “Not a lot of people know that. He’s our cousin on my mother’s side.” Mind = Blown.

But the Poetic Justice alum didn’t stop there. Janet went on to say that she has two more famous cousins. “So is Tracy Chapman,” she said with a laugh. “So is Samuel L. Jackson. He would be a cousin too. I mean, he’s not my brother.”

When it comes to having a famous family member, the Grammy-award-winning artist knows the feeling all too well—considering that she is the youngest child of Katherine Jackson and the late Joe Jackson, who managed his children's careers, including the Jackson 5 and her late brother, Michael Jackson.

Janet candidly spoke about her family dynamic in the 2022 Lifetime documentary, Janet Jackson . In the four-part series, the singer shared how she was close to Michael and Randy growing up.

However, she noticed a shift in her relationship with Michael during his Thriller era. “For the first time in my life, that’s when I felt it was different between the two of us. That a shift was happening,” she said at the time.

Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

The singer continued, “He would always come in my bedroom [and] neither one of us said a word to each other. And then he got up and left. That’s a time where Mike and I started kind of going our separate ways, we weren’t as close. And it may have been just because he was so massive, so huge.”

So, Janet is related to Stevie Wonder, Tracy Chapman and Samuel L. Jackson?! Talk about talent running in the family.

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