Jackson is appreciative of, if not fawning about, the flattery bestowed on her by today’s pop princesses. “I think it’s great for someone to emulate you,” she says slowly. “It lets you know that they’ve watched your work and admired what it is you’ve done.” For her part, Jackson “enjoys” Lady Gaga and “loves” Alicia Keys, for both her music and her spirit. “She has such a beautiful soul. I love her for that. There’s not a lot of them.”
Preparing to put herself back among the Rihannas and Gagas, Jackson is promoting The Best while preparing a European tour for 2010 and writing a book, True You, which, she says, will look at her struggles with weight gain and self-esteem. Yet for all her insecurities — she was quoted recently as saying that she hated her smile — Jackson seems strong. There’s no high-pitched simpering, no glibness, just steady, if occasionally guarded, opinion. It does, however, take time for her to be drawn on Michael. She finally opens up when pressed about her tribute performance at the MTV Video Music Awards in September. “It hit me before I was about to do the performance, and it hit me when we were in rehearsal. There was a huge image of him on this screen, and I started to cry. I had to step away.” She saw her brother two days before his death, and for months after avoided watching television, but his image is impossible to escape. “You know, a day doesn’t go by where you don’t think about him,” she says. “It’s always there, in every sense. “But it will get better. It’s not easy, but I know with time it will get easier.” She stops. “But it will never be easy. It’s my brother.”
Read full story.
Article courtesy of Times Online
