Janelle Monáe is dealing with the fallout from a viral video imitating one of Michael Jackson’s most controversial moments!
This week, the Make Me Feel singer surprised Instagram followers with a parody video imitating the notorious moment when the late King of Pop dangled his infant son Blanket, now known as Bigi, over a Berlin balcony in November 2002.
Janelle wore a black wig and a red button-down shirt in her video this week, just like Michael did back then. Thankfully, she replaced the actual 𝚋𝚊𝚋𝚢 with a robotic dog, but maintained the white blanket. In the video, she comes from her European hotel room, dangles the robotic dog over the ledge in front of a swarm of screaming fans, then quickly pulls it up and returns inside. Later, she reappeared to greet people before flinging the blanket from the balcony. Watch (below):
Janelle Monae so damn unserious bc why tf she dangling that robot out the window like she MJ 😂 pic.twitter.com/cM73VjUeCA
— spicebae (@spicebae_) July 17, 2024
Fans quickly began flooding her comments with HEATED backlash, eventually causing the Glass Onion star to delete the post from her page! But the image of her mocking Michael has been seared into fans’ minds, and they’re NOT happy! On X (Twitter), users wrote things like:
“why would janelle monae do that???”
“The fact that @JanelleMonae is so classless now and attacking @JanetJackson brother Michael Jackson who has been dead over 15 years is pathetic and sad. Janelle I hope you never have to face his sister now because what you did was sick and evil and you know it!”
“Janelle Monàe lost all my respect today. Ain’t nothing funny about that. LET MICHAEL JACKSON REST IN PEACE”
“Not sure what made @JanelleMonae think it was a good idea to re-enact a low point in Michael Jackson’s career 22 years after it happened and 15 years after his death”
“Can people who are in desperate need of attention try to get it in some other way than disrespecting MJ? Thank you.”
“I’m still upset about Janelle disrespecting Michael like that! It was gross!”