I have been railing about this for years to anyone who would listen.

You see, I have in my possession, stashed away somewhere in a box in storage, a videotape from the mid-eighties of a very young and VERY CLEARLY pregnant Janet Jackson at some music awards ceremony. She is wearing a long, blue, chiffony maternity gown and appears onstage with her then-husband, James DeBarge. I always fucking wondered what happened to that baby, as no mention of it was ever subsequently made in the press or in any bios of Ms. Jackson.

And now, I know. Her name is Renee and she is reported to be 18 (though my guess is that she is a bit older…perhaps 20 or 21) and that after her parents’ marriage was forcibly anulled by her grandfather, Joe Jackson, she was sent to be raised by her Aunt Rebbie, her mother’s oldest sister.

And now her mother publicly denies that she even exists. Looking back, I can totally understand that Janet was hardly at a place in her life where she could have adequately raised a child. She was still very young, and still very much under her formidable father’s thumb — and had yet to arrive at the point of self-realization and creative liberation that allowed her to write and release her breakthrough — and aptly titled album — “Control”. But for fuck’s sake, at this point in her life her many loyal fans have grown and matured along with her and have perhaps gotten a little bit of real life, and its many complications, tucked away under their own belts. The truth has come out — just as it always inevitably does. Does she not think they would understand?

It’s time to come clean, Miss Janet.

You are somebody’s mama.

Janet Jackson Denies Having ‘Secret Child’

NEW YORK (Oct. 26) – Janet Jackson says she is not a mother. In a terse statement released Wednesday, the 39-year-old singer denied a former brother-in-law’s claim that she has a “secret” 18-year-old daughter.

“I do not have a child and all allegations saying so are false,” Jackson said in a statement released to the syndicated “Access Hollywood” TV show.

On Friday, Young DeBarge, the brother of Jackson’s ex-husband, James DeBarge, said Jackson and his brother had a child named Renee who was living with Rebbie Jackson, Janet’s oldest sister.

“James and the Jackson family kept everything real close, real tight,” Young DeBarge said on a New York radio station.

A call to Jackson’s publicist by The Associated Press Wednesday wasn’t immediately returned, nor was a message left with Young DeBarge’s manager. A manager for James DeBarge said the singer would not comment.

Jackson and James DeBarge, a singer in the former R&B family group DeBarge, were married for three months in 1984, when Jackson was just 18.