JANET Jackson’s mother reportedly encouraged her to get pregnant before it was too late.
The 49-year-old singer – who will turn 50 on May 16 – is believed to be expecting her first child with husband Wissam Al Mana, and she was advised to take steps to start her family by 86-year-old matriarch Katherine Jackson, who raised the subject with her famous daughter last autumn.
A source told the New York Post newspaper’s Page Six column: ‘[Katherine Jackson] said to Janet, ‘You cannot afford to wait too much longer. I was already a grandma at your age.
And Katherine is said to be ‘thrilled’ the Together Again hitmaker took her advice and will be making her a grandmother for the 28th time.
The source added: ‘It would mean that all of her children have given her grandchildren. She hopes that she can be in the room when Janet gives birth.’
Janet almost outdid her rumoured big news by releasing the music video for her latest single Daamn Baby on Thursday.
The black-and-white video is proof that the pop icon has still got the moves as she performs a series of complex routines alongside a number of backup dancers.
Her music video style is as theatrical as ever with a latex jacket, loose-fitting trousers and combat boots with cuff detailing.
At the beginning of the clip, Janet sashays toward the camera, her sassy attitude still fully intact.
The pop sensation then dances up a storm alongside her similarly clad back-up performers, all of whom vary in age, before enjoying a solo moment when the music becomes more downbeat.
The track is lifted from Janet’s eleventh album Unbreakable, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in 2015.
The video is released the same day as Entertainment Tonight claimed that the Rhythm Nation hit-maker is pregnant with her first child.
While Janet is yet to confirm the news, the star did postpone her Unbreakable tour last month to start a family with her business magnate beau.
‘We’re in the second leg of the tour and there actually has been a sudden change,’ she told her fans via a video posted to Twitter on April 6.
‘I thought it was important that you be the first to know. My husband and I are planning our family, so I’m going to have to delay the tour. Please, if you could try and understand that it’s important that I do this now.’
‘I have to rest up, doctor’s orders. But I have not forgotten about you. I will continue the tour as soon as I possibly can.’
A source told E! News that the singer is in the second trimester of pregnancy, adding the couple had been working with a fertility specialist in a bid to have a child.
Fertility specialist Zita West, founder of the Zita West Fertility Clinic which is known for its holistic approach to natural fertility and IVF, explained to the MailOnline that ‘at the age of 49, the chances of getting pregnant naturally are really slim.’
‘At over 45, many women I see will choose the route of egg donation through which they have far greater success not only of getting pregnant but actually having a baby. The biggest barrier for fertility and conception is age, and the odds are stacked heavily against any woman trying to conceive who is over the age of 45.’
‘The problem is a woman is either perimenopause, or her egg quality or number just is no longer good enough for conception to occur as the large majority of eggs will be chromosomally abnormal.’
‘Ultimately egg quality is a deciding factor in such instances because even the latest in IVF technologies can’t result in a pregnancy using her own eggs for a woman whose egg quality is extremely low because of her age. Generally at our clinic, when a woman is older, egg quality declines, we look to egg donation, in which donor eggs from a younger woman are used, in order to achieve a pregnancy.’’
She later called off a European tour and had been due to resume performances on May 14 in Las Vegas.
Jackson secretly married retailing tycoon Al Mana, 41, in 2012, but didn’t confirm they’d wed until early 2013.
Speaking out that year after rumours they were planning an ‘extravagant wedding,’ Jackson said: ‘Last year we were married in a quiet, private, and beautiful ceremony. Our wedding gifts to one another were contributions to our respective favourite children’s charities.’
In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar magazine in 2009, the then-single singer said: ‘I think that if I’m really supposed to have kids, it will happen, if that’s God’s plan for me.’
She added: ‘I would hope my legacy would be bringing smiles to faces. Happiness with my music. Also, to make babies. I’ve had so many people come up to me and say, ‘My child was conceived by listening to your music.”
Back in 2013, it was reported the couple had been looking into adopting a child from a developing country.
A source close to the singer told UsWeekly: ‘She now pretty much knows pregnancy is not in the cards, so she’s been looking into adopting. She’s been very moved by the events in Jordan and Syria now that she’s been living overseas.’
The singer has been married three times, to James DeBarge as a teenager and to choreographer René Elizond, which ended in divorce in 2000.
Jackson last year released Unbreakable, her first album since the 2009 death of her brother, Michael Jackson aged 50.
The King of Pop had highly publicised dramas he tried to start a family, eventually having two children with Debbie Rowe – who worked at his dermatologist’s office – and a third child with an undisclosed surrogate.
