Jermaine Dupri On Breakup w/ Janet Jackson: She Wasn’t Willing To Move To Atlanta + Talks Rumors He Dated Kandi Burruss Back In The Day
Jermaine Dupri On Breakup w/ Janet Jackson: She Wasn’t Willing To Move To Atlanta + Talks Rumors He Dated Kandi Burruss Back In The Day
Mega producer Jermaine Dupri is opening up about his ex Janet Jackson and his rumored flame, Kandi Burruss.
During an appearance on T.I.’s ExpidiTIously podcast, Jermaine Dupri spoke on speculation that he dated Kandi Burruss, one of the members of his ’90s girl group Xscape. He said that Kandi Burruss’s vocals led the iconic voice of the group’s hit single “Just Kickin’ It” because she was the only one who could sing that low.
“When I wrote ‘Just Kickin’ It, it was in a low register. Nobody in the group… they weren’t singing down there. The only person that had that tone was Kandi… From that point on, that was the lead… And everybody like ‘You like Kandi, you was dating Kandi.’ None of that had nothing to do with… we weren’t even nowhere in that area. It was just the fact that I was writing songs…”
He continued,
“My mind was ‘get to this money…’ I pay so much close attention to movies that I start trying to live what I see happens in these movies… But one of the things I noticed in most movies is that it’s always a female that f*ck up the money. This played in my mind so many times. I just was like, that’s not bout to happen!”
Interestingly enough, he was infamously liked to iconic singer Janet Jackson from 2002-2009. He also dished on their epic relationship and explained how they first met.
“We met at her concert at The Omni [Coliseum]. Kris Kross came… This is when Jermaine Dupri was just a producer. I wasn’t nobody. I didn’t have no record out yet or nothing. Nobody knew me besides what I did for Kris [Kross] and Xscape. We go to her show and I’m part of their entourage… Kris Kross goes in to meet Janet Jackson, and the bodyguard hit me with the hand. So they’re like ‘That’s our man!’ They’re telling her,a nd when they tell her,s he had to vouch for me, ‘Let him in, he cool.’ When I came in, it was almost like the Diana Ross concert. She started talking to me ‘You must be the special one… Why they ain’t wanna leave you outside?’ … It seemed like an energy, right? At that point I was just like, I’m gonna see you again.”
He continued,
“From there, it became a situation where something that I was doing always kind of bled into her life. I had a stylist that was Janet’s stylist. I used to be joking around like ‘Tell Janet I said… You know what I’m saying.’ And one day, she did! And then Janet was saying sh*t back. I’m like wait a minute…”
He said the two ended up linking up at a club through mutual friends and started getting “more comfortable and cool” with one another.
“She realized from that one time that she met me with [Kris Kross] that I was a little bit more important than the person that was supposed to be outside the door. I knew multiple other people. Her friends… and she saw me doing other projects. So we became friends. I guess you wanna call it, I took my shot. She didn’t have a two-way [pager]. They were sending me two-ways… So I found out she didn’t have one and they were sending them to me. I was like, ‘You know what, I want y’all to send one to Janet from me.’ I sent her the two-way. I’m thinking like, I’m gonna get the number and you gon’ hit me back. She hit me back! It was like, at that point, let’s hang out, let’s kick it.”
He said things went to another level after he threw her a party for her birthday, but they still weren’t a couple yet.
“I took her to Magic City. I exposed her to a lot of life that I didn’t even know I could expose a person to. You think when a person is that famous, that rich, they know everything. They’ve seen everything. But it was a lot world that we was living in, cultural wise, that they hadn’t gotten in L.A. That’s where we started hitting it off. We were showing each other multiple things.”
As for why things didn’t work out, he said,
“I started seeing so many other things that I wanted to do, and so many other places that I wanted to do. I started thinking that marriage for me wasn’t gonna work. Just, something about it. When you feel like you’re ready to get married, you don’t have no answers, you just know what it is. I was in the space, I felt married… I think the only thing that created a difference for me was the fact that we didn’t live together. We had an eight year, nine year relationship, but we didn’t live together… I feel like that’s a part where you really determine if you’re strong. She wasn’t willing to move to Atlanta. She was willing to come out here for a couple of weeks. But living in Atlanta, for her, just didn’t really seem like L.A. I wasn’t ready to move to Malibu… I like it, but it aint… It’s just something about being [in Atlanta.]”
#JermaineDupri explains why he never got married and why he & #JanetJackson never said “I Do”. Also says Janet wasn’t willing to move to Atlanta. pic.twitter.com/8dDfvQvnHZ
— theJasmineBRAND (@thejasminebrand) April 24, 2020
He said ironically enough, he started working in L.A. much more in the future.
What are your thoughts on Jermaine Dupri and Janet Jackson’s breakup? Tell us in the comments.