In the wake of the release of the Hulu documentary Malfunction: The Dressing Down of Janet Jackson,” celebrity stylist Wayne Scott Lukas, who has worked with pop queen Janet Jackson for decades, is offering his behind-scenes-look about what really happened during the infamous reveal during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.
Lukas claims that everything happened the way it was supposed to happen and that there was supposed to be a reveal. Only not quite as planned. “If I work with someone who’s a dancer, you have to be able to dance in a wardrobe and it has to never fall apart,” Lukas said to Page Six last week.
“My job is to have snaps and pins and Velcros so that even in her quick change, if she forgets to snap something back on, it stays on. That’s my job. I stand 100% by my story that I did exactly what I was supposed to do. I did exactly what I was hired for and if I ever hurt my friend, I wouldn’t’ve worked with her for six years after the Super Bowl. I would have been fired that day.”
Justin Timberlake, grinning ear-to-ear, spoke to reporters after the show saying, “Hey man, we all love giving ya’ll something to talk about.” Backstage he had said, “It’s just a little wardrobe malfunction. We all want to give you something to think about.”
Lukas revealed that Timberlake was the first to point fingers at the stylist. “We haven’t spoken since he blamed me. … He coined that phrase. And the moment he said that I thought, ‘Friendship over. Wardrobe malfunction? I don’t malfunction.’ I was a professional stylist. Ten thousand dollars a day back then. I can’t fail. Why’d you say that?”
Apparently, the producers of the Super Bowl Halftime Show didn’t cut away fast enough. “You were never supposed to see a movement where a breast was out, a body part was out. It was never supposed to be lingering on what they say was this terrible thing for such a long time. They were supposed to cut to black. You were supposed to get the impression that ‘I’m gonna have you naked by the end of this song,’ but nobody was supposed to be naked,” Lukas said.
He even went on to say that when you perform for the Super Bowl halftime show you do it twice. Even the rehearsal is taped because if the satellites go out during the live performance, the producers can cut to the taped rehearsal. “So they had a second performance that the minute that happened they coulda pushed the button and cut to the tape. And they didn’t,” Lukas said, “Somebody didn’t push the button. Somebody didn’t protect my friend.”
Even after talking to Jackson, Lukas knew he had to say something since the documentary’s release. “I gotta talk to somebody so at least it’s on camera.” He has been getting threats and the last one was threatening to hang him by a tree in New Jersey. So, despite Jackson saying to him, “Lukas don’t talk to anybody. Just let this go. Just let this go. We’re gonna handle this in January. I’m going to talk about this in January.” Lukas just couldn’t wait.
Jackson seemingly responded to the the circus surrounding the documentary with a cryptic message, “Not sure if you got the memo. But, we’re not competing anymore, we’re appreciating and uplifting each other instead.”
The “Control” singer will be sharing much about her personal life and career, including the much talked about incident with Timberlake during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, in a her own two-hour, two-part documentary produced by Lifetime and A&E in the new year.
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