The revenge exacted on Janet Jackson following the well-documented Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction goes deeper than previously thought and at the root is CBS executive Les Moonves.
Huffington Post reports that Moonves worked overtime to sabotage Jackson’s career because she wasn’t apologetic enough for the incident.
The CBS chief executive, according to sources who spoke to me, was furious that Jackson didn’t make a similarly contrite apology to him. The fallout from the incident inflicted significant damage on Jackson’s career ― which until that point had produced 10 No. 1 hits ― and still reverberates to this day.
Moonves ordered Viacom properties VH1 and MTV, and all Viacom-owned radio stations, to stop playing Jackson’s songs and music videos. 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.
The report goes on to say that in the years following, Moonves was upset Jackson was able to procure a book deal through CBS owned property Simon and Schuster.
Seven years after the 2004 incident, Moonves told several sources he was furious when he found out Jackson had signed a book deal with Simon & Schuster for her book True You: A Journey to Finding and Loving Yourself. Simon & Schuster is owned by the CBS Corporation.
“How the fuck did she slip through?” Moonves asked while recounting the story to a source who spoke to me. He told another source that heads were going to roll as a result of the deal.
Moonves is reportedly facing termination as a result of sexual harassment allegations uncovered by an investigation conducted by The New Yorker. Jackson is currently touring and experiencing a recent boom in media attention following the broadcast of the Bobby Brown Story on BET. The revelation of the past relationship between her and Brown sent social media into a firestorm.
