Motherhood has been a life altering experience for Janet Jackson, who welcomed son Eissa in January 2017.
“My son, even in his short 17 months on this planet, has showed me that love, no matter how deeply you believe you have experienced that emotion, can always go deeper,” the 52-year-old singer gushed in an interview with Billboard published on Thursday, May 17. “Day after day and night after night, holding my baby in my arms, I am at peace. I am blessed. I feel bliss. In those moments, all is right with the world.”
The five-time Grammy winner and Qatari business tycoon Wissam Al Mana ended their five-year marriage in May 2017, three months after welcoming Eissa. Though the toddler is the main man in Jackson’s life, Bruno Mars “holds a special place” in her heart.
“Bruno was really the first music my son responded to,” Jackson revealed. “During and after his birth, I comforted myself with Brazilian jazz, music that always relaxes me. Then when the baby began crawling, Bruno was breaking out big and on the radio all the time. That delighted both of us. Bruno is a big throwback to the days when the greatest artists could do it all: write, sing, dance, produce.”
When it comes to her own work, the musician is especially proud of providing backup vocals to her late brother Michael Jackson’s 1982 hit “P.Y.T.”(Jackson died in 2009 of cardiac arrest at the age of 50.)
“I was 16 and in between my first two records,” Jackson recalled. “Since we had been singing together forever, I knew it’d be easy. I jumped at the chance. I loved being one of the P.Y.T.’s and was especially proud — hope this doesn’t sound like bragging — that when the record was mixed, my single background voice was the one featured. I can’t tell you how good that made me feel.”
