Janet Jackson has claimed that Kamala Harris is not black and that the Democrats’ 2024 presidential nominee has a white father.
Janet Jackson, 58, made the shocking assertion in an interview with The Guardian, when asked on her feelings about the United States having its first female black president.
‘Well, you know what they supposedly said?’ the singer Janet Jackson answered. ‘She’s not black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian.’
‘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.’
Harris, 59, was born in 1964 to Dr Shyamala Gopalan, an Indian-born cancer researcher, and Donald J. Harris, a black Jamaican economics professor.
The couple wed in 1963 and separated in 1971, after welcoming Kamala and her younger sister Maya, 57.
Gopalan died of cancer in 2009 aged 70, while Donald Harris, 86, is now a professor emeritus of economics at Stanford University after retiring in 1998.
Jackson’s late brother Michael faced controversy about his skin after it changed color from black to white over the course of his career. He blamed a medical condition called vitiligo and denied bleaching his skin.
And the Nasty singer’s false claim about Harris being half-white has been compared to one of Donald Trump’s most notorious claims during the presidential campaign.
Trump claimed Harris ‘happened to turn black’ while addressing a the National Association of Black Journalists’ convention in Chicago in July.
He said: ‘She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage.
‘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?
‘I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t, because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went – she became a black person. I think somebody should look into that too.’
Harris shrugged off the remarks days later accusing Trump of ‘the same old show, the divisiveness and the disrespect.’
She added: ‘The American people deserve better.’
The vice president has yet to comment on Jackson’s remarks about her race.
Trump’s comments on Harris race outraged many conservatives, with even his own supporters said to be annoyed at the former president for not focusing on attacks on Harris’ policies.
Earlier this month, Trump appeared to double down on his comments about Harris’ race.
‘I don’t care what she is. I don’t care. Whatever she wants to be is okay with me.’
Polls show that the race between Trump and Harris remains on a knife edge ahead of election day on Tuesday November 5.