Janet Jackson on infamous Super Bowl performance: 'Tough for me to talk about that time'

Super Bowl XXXVIII is largely remembered most for the wardrobe malfunction between Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake rather than the New England Patriots defeating the Carolina Panthers.

Jackson, for one, certainly hasn't forgotten.

For the February cover of Allure, the five-time Grammy winner gave rare insight into the debacle that negatively impacted Jackson, a powerful Black woman, and catapulted Timberlake, a white man.

"What's really important is going back to having that foundation," Jackson, 55, said. "Not just family, but God. That's what really pulled me through. It's tough for me to talk about that time."

Writer Robin Givhan then asked Jackson about how she has processed "being a talking point in today's debate of systemic racism and entrenched gender bias," especially because that Super Bowl halftime performance was not a scandal involving "indiscriminate violence, extreme profanity, or sexual assault" and instead "anger over a Black woman's body thrust into the public's jaundiced gaze."

"Whether I want to be part of that conversation or not, I am part of that conversation," Jackson responded. "I think it's important. Not just for me, but for women. So I think it's important that conversation has been had. You know what I mean? And things have changed obviously since then for the better."

Jackson previously issued a public apology after the Super Bowl in 2004 and then discussed it in-depth on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2006. The subject was revisited in last November's Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson documentary: