Janet Jackson questioned Kamala Harris’ race in an interview printed by The Guardian on Saturday (Sept. 21).

The interview touched upon the singer’s Together Again Tour, how she’s recorded “a lot of music that’s just sitting on the shelf,” and being a father or mother. It additionally shifted to the subject of the upcoming U.S. election, with the reporter noting Americans might elect their first Black, feminine president: democratic nominee Harris.

“Well, you know what they supposedly said?” Jackson chimed in. “She’s not Black — that’s what I heard, that she’s Indian.”

Added Jackson, “Her father’s white, that’s what I was told. I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days. I was told that they discovered her father was white.”

She didn’t elaborate on the place she’d heard this data, which is fake.

Harris is each Black and Indian. Her father, Donald J. Harris, got here to the U.S. from Jamaica. Her mom, the late Shyamala Gopalan, got here to the U.S. from India. They each moved to the U.S. to review on the University of California, Berkeley, which is the place they met in 1962.

The Guardian approached the subject once more with Jackson, asking if she thinks America is prepared for a president who’s a girl of colour.

“I don’t know,” Jackson mentioned. “Honestly, I don’t want to answer that because I really truthfully don’t know. I think either way it goes is going to be mayhem.”

The singer’s quotes about Harris trended on social media, the place many followers expressed disappointment in one among their idols repeating misinformation.

“You had the chance to stand with a Black woman loud and proud and you didn’t. This is hard for a lifelong fan,” says a prime touch upon Jackson’s most up-to-date Instagram put up, which was taken over with reactions to what Jackson mentioned about Harris.

On X, previously Twitter, a put up learn, “Janet Jackson is one of the most influential people in music history. It was simply irresponsible of her to repeat something she ‘heard’ regarding the very thing that they use against Kamala! Her own race. We are less than 50 days away from the election. We gotta talk smarter!”

Over the summer season, Donald Trump introduced up Harris’ racial id on the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago, the place he claimed, “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

At the Sept. 10 presidential debate, Trump mentioned, “All I can say is I read where she was not Black … And then I read that she was Black, and that’s OK. Either one was OK with me. That’s up to her.”

Harris later responded, “Honestly, I think it’s a tragedy that we have someone who wants to be president, who has consistently, over the course of his career, attempted to use race to divide the American people.”

Jackson, in line with the reporter behind the The Guardian article, was not feeling properly on the day of the interview. She had a chilly.