Amid Dee Barnes’s op-ed condemning the Grammys for honoring Dr. Dre, news about Janet Jackson has surfaced. The music icon has received just about every honor someone in her position could hope for. However, TMZ now reports that Ms. Jackson was initially slated to receive the Global Impact Award this year. Instead, the title went to Dre, and the outlet detailed what they learned happened, forcing the switch.
The Global Impact Award was bestowed courtesy of The Recording Academy’s Black Music Collective during a private ceremony. Dre, Missy Elliott, Lil Wayne, and Sylvia Rhone were lauded, but according to some, the award was supposed to include Janet Jackson. Reports state higher-ups didn’t know how to navigate the fallout of her Super Bowl scandal.
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In 2004, Jackson took to the halftime stage and was joined by Justin Timberlake. It was then that he ripped off her top, exposing her breast to a global audience. Immediately, Jackson was vilified, and her career even took a hit. People chastised her for blemishing the wholesome sports event, but it would take years for the truth to surface. It was later learned that Jackson wasn’t at fault, and, after years of condemnation, Timberlake apologized to Jackson.
Additionally, Jackson didn’t attend the private Grammys ceremony because she had something else scheduled. There were conversations about the singer receiving the award from another location, as negotiations about CBS publicly apologizing were also entertained. TMZ reported they were unable to come to an agreement, so Jackson lost out on the honor altogether.
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Dee Barnes was a music journalist who interviewed several hitmakers in the late 1980s and early ’90s. It was back then that she aired a segment that would ruffle Dr. Dre’s feathers as Ice Cube was in a beef with his former group N.W.A. Barnes reportedly ran into Dre at an event, and she claimed he slammed her head into a wall and kicked her after she fell to the ground. In her op-ed for Rolling Stone, Barnes not only detailed the assault but she called out The Recording Academy for giving an “abuser” his own award.
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