. ♪ >> janet jackson or ms. if you're nasty to her, never talks about her private life really, but tonight she's told me i can ask anything i like about her life in one of the most famous families in history. it should be an amazing encounter. how are you? >> how are you? >> may i? lovely to meet you. ♪ >>> janet, how are you? >> i'm very giddy right now. >> giddy? >> yes. >> it is exciting for you, i know. >> it's good to see you. >> is it exciting? do you like doing interviews? do you hate them? how do you feel? >> i'm not very keen about doing interviews. >> why not? >> i'm not much of a talker. i mean obviously i will if i have to, but i'd rather listen. i'd rather just stay very quiet and listen to what's going on. >> yet you have written a book that was incredibly open. i was surprised knowing how quiet you are. i was -- wow, she's being frank and honest here about private stuff. >> it's funny you say that. a lot of people said the very same thing when i did "the velvet rope "album. i have always written ab

. >> reading your book, janet, there seems to be two janet jacksons. e brilliant stage performers with all the confidence of a top performer and the quiet, shy, retiring young janet who goes home who's very different. which one have i got today? >> i don't know. maybe a little bit of both. i don't know. >> you are two people, aren't you? >> yeah. i am. i think everybody -- it's beyond two people. i mentioned this in "the velvet rope." really we have several different characters that live within us. it all depends upon who we are interacting with that the character comes out at that moment. >> you have had this extraordinary life. reading your book, from the moment you were born, you were born into fame. you had no choice. you had to be famous because you were a jackson and you were one of the youngest jacksons. you had no option here. if i could give you an option. you're now 3 or 4 years old and i hold the keys to the door to fame. >> 3 or 4? >> say you're 3 or 4 and right at the moment when you're about to start performing and i can say to you, janet,

apparently she sat there with this expose ed situation, a la janet jackson.et you know what is going on. for a full minute. >> nobody knew what to say probably. they were sort of embarrassed. not sure what they were looking at. >> they're thinking ratings, awesome. >> so they let it go for a long time. then they came up and told her, perhaps she is exposing more than she meant to. khloe didn't mind too much. she tweeted and said no big deal. she wasn't all that roughed up. >> very breezy sort of an outfit. >> yes. >> there has to be a transition between nipple exposure and tiger woods. >> you said nipple. >> he pulled out of the u.s. open. he struggled with, an injury to his left leg for quite a while. been trying to rehabilitate, medial collateral ligament and a mild strain of his achilles tendon. he won't be playing in the u.s. open. 22 tournaments he has not had a win. he slipped to 15th in the world. so clearly his career has taken a turn for the worse since the scandal. >> let's face it since the whole scandal, really, came out about he's never been the

jackson girls! la toya and baby janet. >> how's it going, pipsqueak? by, give me one more chance ♪ >> when i watch that, obviously the end there you get to the jackson brothers and off they go, do this amazing thing. a little part of me, i'll be honest with you, it feels slightly, you know, i've got three children, like you all had your childhood, your innocence taken away from you. you didn't have much choice. you got pushed into this world. and that's what you knew and that was your life, and you didn't have a normal existence, when you were young, many of you. >> well, this was our life, and that is what we knew and that's all we knew, and how could someone rob or take something away from you if you don't know anything else? >> when you look back on it now, do you feel that? >> when i look back on it, it was fun times, wonderful times. i wish i had known a little more about the world because then you could control your life better because you know what you're about to face. however, no, i have no regrets when it comes to that. i think that -- when i

. >> i do think, and i love her dearly, i think pretty much coming from janet jackson. >> that's what she thinks. i think that, well, actually depends how you interpret diva. janet, more or less, she's on the tom boyish side and i was never that way, she used to get angry when we were younger, my mother would say you have to go to etiquette school. she would say it is your fault i have to go. you act like a girl. and she was defiant, didn't want to go. i have a memory in my head about jan. we took her to the school and my mother was driving and jan was in the back of the mercedes. the minute my mother got out to open the door, she looked my mother out, propped her foot against the door and holds it like you're not making me get out of the car. she was rebellious. she refuses to go to etiquette and charm school. didn't want that. >> still has that naughty streak. >> but she's a wonderful person, and after all, she did it. she's a lady today. >> how did you get together? you come from what appears on the outside, let's be honest, a fairly dysfunctional family simply because of the ludic

so it's kind of like the reverse janet jackson.xactly what it's like. >> they're on my situation. >> jimmy: this would make a lovely christmas card as well. >> that is my christmas card. >> jimmy: you got your -- you got team adam on "the voice" now and you got to cut it in half tomorrow night. the audience cuts it in half? >> america saves one person. then i have to save one myself. >> jimmy: i see. >> those two will advance and then two people have to go home. it's super stressful. i don't want to have to do that. >> jimmy: that's not fun part of it, isn't it? >> it really is legitimate. i'm not pretending to feel that way. it's really tough because these kids are working so hard. it's hard to say, you have to go now, bye. but they all got good exposure. >> jimmy: not like exposure like this. and then maroon 5, your band, and you'll do a song with christina aguilera. >> tomorrow, we're opening the show. >> jimmy: and then one of you has to go home? >> hopefully her because i don't want to. >> jimmy: you're going on this -- no, na

. ♪ ride on the peace train >> reporter: peter framtton and janet jackson among others.at was closest to his heart. >> well, i signed the carpenters in 1969 or 1970. ♪ every time you walk by > it was alpert who convinced karen and richard carpenter to record the song that would make them super stars. ♪ close to you >> and then something happened. all of a sudden i turned into a genius. people liked them so much ♪ and decided to create a dream come true ♪ >> reporter: "close to you" was of course a smash. but the carpenters' career would end in tragedy with karen's death from anorexia at age 32. nearly 30 years later her memory still haunts him. >> i loved karen. she was a wonderful lady. she was (sniffing). every time i think about her, it's so unfair. she was great. >> reporter: do you remember the last time you saw her. >> yeah, i do remember the last time i saw her. the irony is she never realized how great she was. she never really accepted the fact that she really had it. >> reporter: by 1989, alpert had had it with the music industry. and when giant polly gram reco

but in many ways are closer and stronger, as janet jackson told "dateline." >> family always has comef. >> when something like that happens, you really cherish each and every moment, because you never know what tomorrow will bring. >> reporter: while their lives have changed, the jacksons continue to work. a fact that's been with them since the early days in gary, indiana. >> they are working people with families, with all the challenges that families have. but with a very loving bond. >> reporter: a bond that will soon be tested at the trial of dr. conrad murray. he's accused of giving jackson a fatal dose of a powerful anesthetic. as tough as it will be, katherine jackson vows to be in the court for the duration. >> very difficult just looking at him, knowing that he was there to see after my son, and he died under his care. so that -- that makes me feel really bad. i can't stand to look at him. >> reporter: katherine is also raising prince, paris and blanket, and as she told matt lauer, an michael's kids don't have to be reminded of the tragedy. >> they're off doing the things that

jackson, the mother. it's hurtful to the kids, to the brothers and sisters, to randy, to tito, to jermaine and janet, but this family together now. >> alan, let me bring you into this discussion. when michael jackson died, nine of the top ten downloaded songs were michael jackson songs after his death. how is his music selling today? >> certainly, that explosion of all the interest and all the love that was allowed to come out after his passing. as you said, it was just nine of the top ten itunes downloads, the entire top of the album chart in the aftermath, all of this attention in sales and certainly didn't sustain to that level for two years since. i don't think there's any question, you hear a lot more michael jackson song on the radio now than you did in the months before he passed. i think it's clear that now the catalog is, you know, again part of the musical landscape in a way for the 10 or 12 years before his passing it really hadn't been. >> i know when michael jackson was alive, it was said when he would record an album, he would record hundreds and only 10 or 12 would make the album and he die

jackson 5 as a cartoon on tv, reaching into, you know, white households on saturday morning. that was a powerful statement. >> a little nostalgia. joining me from hala wood, johnny gill. and janet the bc kids. she also played aunt vivon the fresh prince of bellaire. you grew up in the jacksons generation. what was it like to see a black pop group so so big time when there were civil rights issues. >> for me growing up in a high school in a little town where there was probably ten black kids, it was monumentis, it was like nothing you had ever seen. it gave you a hope you could make it from a small town. i had five brothers, so we all grabbed our coca-cola bottles and our glasses and acted like jackson 5. >> and johnny gill, you were a product of the jackson 5 generation. and i heard you say as a kid watching the jookson 5 special was like watching an event, why? >> the whole family would gather around, and we were in awe. as kids, we didn't really believe they were real. >> egypt, i want to ask you as somebody else who got to follow the jacksons as you were growing up, how do you think they impacted america culturally. >> we were in the middle of the civil rights movement. blac

. >> tito jackson couldn't get a hold of his mother as he raced to ucla medical center, but a call from his sister janeti said janet, is he dead? and she said, he's gone. and i just melted right there, and i didn't know what to do. i pulled over in this parking lot and just cried for like 15 minutes and went back home. >> jermaine jackson did make it to the hospital as the crowds and media began to swell outside. inside, his brother michael lay dead. >> they had -- they had a sheet wrapped on top of him. i could feel his skin, still soft and smooth, and i just kissed his forehead so much and i just talked to him. the memories, that's what hurt. and to know that there would never be another jackson 5. >> despite his overwhelming grief, it was jermaine who delivered the family's official announcement that michael was dead. and you have to go out from that hospital, and you have to tell the world. >> um-hum. i couldn't believe that i was announcing my brother's death for the world. it was -- i was numb. very numb, because it was like a nightmare. >> my brother, the legendary king of pop, michael jackson, p