Janet Jackson Harper’s Bazaar

In her first interview since her brother Michael’s June 25 death, Janet Jackson says:

She’s Not Watching the News:

“It will drive you crazy,” she tells October’s Harper’s Bazaar. “People can have rhinoceros skin, but there’s a point when something’s going to hurt you. Not everyone is stone, stone. I haven’t watched the news in weeks. I had to ask my chef, ‘How’s Obama doing?’ I haven’t read a newspaper. On top of that, [we've lost] a family member.”

She’ Can’t Believe he Passed:

“My brother is, I mean was…” she stammers when talking about Michael’s style. Shifting on the couch and staring at the floor, she adds, “You have to forgive me, because it’s really hard to believe he’s passed.”

MJ was in good spirits at Janet’s B-day:

“We had so much fun that day,” she says, noting that ate Thai food and tormented each other. “We kept calling each other after and saying how great it was.”

How is she coping?

Recently spending three days on a beach helped, she says.

“It was the first time I had to myself since Michael passed, the first time I could get away since all of that,” says the singer.

Jackson says she was touched after Michael’s daughter Paris, 11, spoke at her father’s public memorial. Fighting back tears, Paris told the crowd, “Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine.”

Says Janet, “I was really proud. People said to me that Michael’s daughter speaking really gave them a sense of how he was as a father, in her words. Paris is incredibly smart; they are all so smart. She’s a sweet girl. The kids are doing well. They’re with all their cousins; that family love will keep them going.”

She’s also learned she has her mother Katherine’s “strength.”

“Now at least I know that I can step up to the plate and not crumble when I’m needed,” says Janet. “When it comes to something like this that is so, so serious, so painful, so traumatic, I can handle it.”

The singer – who’s been married twice (as a teen to James DeBarge and to choreographer Rene Elizondo) – also tells the magazine, “I don’t know if I’ll get married again. I’ll put it like this: If God wants me to, then I will.”

As for kids, “I’d adopt,” Janet says. “And I think that if I’m really supposed to have kids, it will happen, if that’s God’s plan for me.”

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