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Shallow Nation

November 19th, 2009 at 9:02 am

Janet Jackson Interview with Robin Roberts Video [Full Program] 11-18-09

Here is the full Janet Jackson interview with Robin Roberts from Nov. 18, 2009 on ABC In the Spotlight and transcript. The music superstar discussed her late brother Michael Jackson at length, including family attempts at intervention with his prescription drug abuse as well as sharing her belief that his physician Dr. Conrad Murray, who administered the doses of anesthetic Propofol shown by the autopsy report to be responsible for his demise, is culpable in the death. “He was the one that was administering. I think he is responsible,” she said.

In speaking of the attempts at intervention, she said, “Those are the things that you do when you love someone. You can’t just let them continue on that way. And we did a few times. We weren’t very successful….You can’t make ‘em drink the water. It’s something that you can’t do for them, something they have to do for themselves.”

Regarding his death, she said, “It just didn’t ring true to me. It felt like a dream. It’s still so difficult for me to believe. It’s been a tough year. You have your days where it’s just really — it’s hard to believe. And a day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about him.”

In addition to discussion of her brother she also talked about her own upbringing and her interactions with father, Joseph Jackson. Early clips of her appearances as a child on sitcoms were shown and she revealed that her father steered her away from acting towards a singing career. She talked about her at age 18 to James DeBarge, whose prescription drug addition which brought about the end of the marriage after three months and the parallels to MJ’s addiction. Additional discussion centered around her own lengthy career as a multi-Grammy Award winning music superstar and cultural icon.

Source: Transcript: Janet Jackson: Family Not Naive About Michael’s Drug Addiction

See also excerpts from her Harper’s Bazaar interview: Janet’s First Words Since Brother’s Death

The full interview video is below.