Janet Jackson on Diet, Family Beauty Secrets and Michael

"Love."

She says the word several times because it's how she got through the dark days.

Janet Jackson, her wee voice on the other end of the phone line, is talking to me about how she coped with losing her beloved brother Michael.

"Love," she repeats. "It was all about the love of family and the support I felt around me. I felt the nurturing from everyone in my life."

At age 45, the baby of the Jackson family says she had learned a crucial life lesson as a mid-lifer.

"I think you keep it simple," she says. "Find what you love to do and don't let anyone stop you. You're not a kid anymore. You're in charge. Do what you love to do and if you would do it for free then you know you've found your passion in life."

"I wake up, write a song. I dream songs," she says. "I always have some kind of recording device on me."

"You know the only person who stops me from the pursuit of joy?" she asks.

"Myself."

JACKSON FAMILY BEAUTY SECRETS

She remains ageless and gorgeous.

"I don't even do anything special," Jackson insists of her beauty regime. "The only thing I use is what we always used in my family which is Kirk's Castile soap. My mother uses it. Her mother used it. I think the mother before her used it.

"The majority of my sisters and brothers used it," she says. "Otherwise, I have to thank my parents for good genes. I don't even do night creams. My sisters have beautiful skin and so does my mother. We don't even makeup. We're just fortunate."

STRUGGLES WITH HER WEIGHT

Janet wrote the new book "True You," about her struggles with weight loss and body image.

"I didn't just want to write about nutrition," she cautions, "My weight has always been about my childhood and my issues.

"I wasn't a heavy kid or an oversized kid," she says. "But I did feel my self-esteem slipping. On the set of 'Good Times,' they would say to me, 'You need to lose weight.' Then they would bind my chest because I had breasts at age 10. That was like telling me that who I was naturally wasn't acceptable."

"I was the kind of child – and I'm still this way – who holds everything inside," she says. "It manifests itself and comes out through eating. That's my comfort. Then I go back, lose the weight and gain the weight again. You hate yourself for it."

She didn't want to write a diet book.

"It's a way of life. I think it's also about knowing that your favorite food is something you don't have to give up. You can go back to it and have it."

FINDING CONTROL

Janet says that nothing prepared her for the tragic loss of her brother Michael. She says that she found private ways of coping through her pain.

 "The ocean calms and relaxes me," she says in a soft voice. "I lived near the water for a long time and it has always made me feel good. Getting lost in a character for a movie also helps me.

"The best advice I can give anyone going through a hard time is just to breathe," she says.

She adds that work also helps.

"Just having to show up for work and transforming into a character was very therapeutic for me after I lost Michael," she says. "In a way, it was an escape. It's what I needed to help me get through things. I needed escapism.

"I would come home and have to let go of all of it, which was difficult," she says. "But I got up the next day."

ON HER PLATE

Her film "For Colored Girls" is out on DVD. Jackson plays one of several women who are represented in a collection of 20 poems that reflect womanhood and the struggles African American women face.

Based on the hit play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf" by Ntozake Shange, the film also stars Thandie Newton, Whoopi Goldberg, Kerry Washington, Loretta Devine, Anika Noni Rose, Kimberly Elise and Phylicia Rashad.

She says acting is her passion now.  

"I've loved acting since I was a child, but never took an acting class," she says of her second career. "I was so busy with my music and performing with my family that I couldn't say, 'I want to also become an actress,'" she recalls.

She sighs.

"As a child, I never had time to be a Girl Scout or go to gymnastics or ballet. How could I find time for acting?" she says. "So, I secretly fell in love with it and always tried to make acting a part of my life. The music usually took precedence.

"There have been a lot of film roles I've had to pass up over the years because I had to go on tour. There were wonderful roles offered to me that I could tackle, but I was committed to a new CD," she says. "It was so hard for me to say no, but I like to think that everything in life happens for a reason."

This includes motherhood. For years, there have been endless rumors that the divorced Jackson is pregnant.

She just giggles.

"I guess the media feels I'm getting a certain age and now I better buckle down and become a Mom," she says. "If it's God's will, it will happen. There are some women who don't become moms until they're 47. If it's in the cards for me then it will happen."

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