Janet Jackson has disclosed some surprising family connections, revealing that she’s related to Samuel L. Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Tracy Chapman. The 58-year-old singer shared the news during an interview with Scott Mills on the BBC’s “Radio 2 Breakfast Show.”
In a clip from the interview shared on X Tuesday, Mills, 51, asked Janet, “Now someone told me this earlier, are you related to Stevie?”
“He’s our cousin,” Janet replied. “Not a lot of people know that,” she added. “He’s our cousin on my mother’s side. So is Tracy Chapman.”
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In response to a surprised Mills asking to review her family tree, Jackson confirmed that actor Samuel L. Jackson, 75, is her cousin.
“So Stevie is what to you?” Mills asked.
Jackson reiterated that Wonder, 74, and Chapman, 60, are her cousins.
When asked again about her relation to Samuel, Jackson said, “He would be my cousin too, I mean he’s not my brother.”
Jackson is the youngest member of the iconic Jackson family, which includes her siblings Rebbie, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, La Toya, Marlon, Randy, and the late Michael Jackson, who died in 2009. She also had another brother, Brandon, who passed away shortly after birth in 1957.
In her 2022 Lifetime documentary, Jackson opened up about her family dynamic, discussing her parents Joe and Katherine Jackson’s parenting techniques and their impact on her upbringing.
“My parents disciplined all of us and that’s how, we as a people, raised our kids,” said Janet, who shares 7-year-old son Eissa Al Mana with her ex-husband, Wissam Al Mana.
“But you turn around and you give them love to show them, ‘I love you. I’m here for you,’ ” she continued. “Discipline without love is tyranny. And tyrants they were not. They just loved us and wanted us to be the best that we could be. Obviously, it worked.”
Joe Jackson passed away in June 2018 at age 89 after a battle with terminal pancreatic cancer.
