Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic/Getty Images
The 55-year-old has won numerous Grammys, Billboard Music Awards, VMAs … any type of music award, really. She was awarded the MTV Video Vanguard in 1990 at age 24, still the youngest person to ever win.
She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019 after 11 studio albums, most recently 2015’s “Unbreakable.”
It’s impossible to discuss Jackson, however, without talking about the infamous 2004 Super Bowl performance which many credit for derailing her career. During the show, Justin Timberlake pulled off a panel of her costume, and accidentally exposed her right breast to the 140 million viewers. At the time, Jackson apologized, and the phrase “wardrobe malfunction” was coined, but then-CBS executive Les Moonves believed the incident had been intentional, according to reports.
“Moonves ordered Viacom properties VH1 and MTV, and all Viacom-owned radio stations, to stop playing Jackson’s songs and music videos,” Huff Post reported in 2018. “The move had a huge impact on sales of her album ‘Damita Jo,’ which was released in March 2004, just a month after the Super Bowl.”
In February 2021, Timberlake apologized to Jackson and Britney Spears in a long Instagram statement, saying, “I care for and respect these women and I know I failed.”