But Janet wouldn't be a Jackson if there weren't some sort of controversy brewing. From allegations of Michael's sexual abuse to LaToya's well-known eccentricities, Janet was always "the normal one." Remarkably straightforward, not into sugarcoating the truth, Jackson has weathered this kind of media storm before. She is what southerners call a steel magnolia: a beautiful flower with a core of pure strength. "Put me in check," she tells friends. "Because I will definitely do it to you." She knows the press can't help but focus on the fact that her marriage was a secret, but it's not a decision she laments with shame or regret. "I wanted to have a normal family life," she says simply. "Since I was a child, my personal life has been lived in the public eye."

The thing that amazes me most about Jackson is that when you're with her, you can easily forget that she's "Janet Jackson: Pop Superstar/Icon." We first met on the set of John Singleton's Poetic Justice, her first film, in 1993. I was writing a making-of-the-movie book, Poetic Justice: Filmmaking South Central Style. We probably only spoke a handful of times. Then three years ago, we became friends. What I love about her is the way she can morph into sister-girl mode in a New York minute. Immediately after greeting each other with hugs, we're reeling off about the potentially troublesome brother I'm scooping, the joy of shopping (or as she says, "doing a little damage on the credit card") and how much we both adore Miami. "I love the Latin culture," I say. "It's everywhere down there, not to mention all the Latino men." Jackson smiles mischievously, "I know what you mean, I could get into some serious trouble down there."

The conversation moves on to our respective homes. She's just moved into a mansion in West Los Angeles, that's still under construction. I'm renovating my tiny one-bedroom in Brooklyn. I pull out a copy of Elle Decor to show her what I have in mind, and she's loving it. "That's beautiful," she says, "really fresh and modern." It doesn't seem to matter that since signing a $70-million deal with Virgin Records in 1996, her net worth has sky-rocketed beyond belief, or that I grew up in East Flatbush so poor that we were always begging the landlord for heat. Honeygirl, on the other hand, owns a Picasso in her drop-dead New York apartment, where she's increasingly spending more time. There's always this sense that she's not thinking about your bank account or your family, she's just dealing with you as a person who is her friend-and she'd appreciate it if you did the same.

When Jackson comes to pick me up at my hotel in Los Angeles, she comes alone, without bodyguards. "You can't have a private conversation with security around," she explains. Her family would prefer if she didn't take such chances, but she doesn't want to live as a pop princess, ensconced in a castle she can't escape. Clad in a black baseball cap and a Spelman College sweatshirt, the Grammy-winning superstar could easily pass for a graduate student forum nearby UCLA. Sans makeup, she's mad casual. The first question she asks is, "Are you hungry? Do you want to get something to eat?" When I say no, she says, "Cool, let's go for a drive." In my naivete, I suggest we go to the beach. But it's a holiday weekend and once there, I'm sorry we came. It's flooded with people, and reality hits. Janet Jackson simply cannot appear on a crowded beach and expect folks to leave her alone. We make a turn onto Pacific Coast Highway to find somewhere more isolated and get stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. "Forget about the beach," I say. "I don't want us in a traffic jam."

It's a beautiful day, so we end up cruising around Los Angeles, bumping tunes and talking. She talks excitedly about starring in Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. "It's a dream to work opposite Eddie," she says. "He's so awesome, just a genius. I'm not using that word lightly. It's genius what he does," Jackson was content to let Murphy do what he does, even though that meant she wouldn't get laughs. "I'm not funny in it; I'm just a straightman," she says. "But I had the best time. It was hard to keep a straight face. I'd try to hide my laughter, but I couldn't help it. I was hating the fact it was going to be over."

Despite her new movie, Jackson still feels the sting of not getting to play the role closet to her heart - that of 1950's film star Dorothey Dandridge, Hollywood's premier black leading lady and the first black woman nominated for an Oscar as Best Actress. Dandridge's soap opera-worth life, full of glitz, glamour, heartbreak - and, yes, drama - was the stuff of Tinseltown legend. It created a virtual stampede by today's top black actresses to land the plum role. At one point, Jackson, Whitney Houston and Halle Berry all had projects on Dandridge in development. Berry prevailed, however, starring in a 1999 HBO film for which she earned both Golden Globe and Screen Actor's Guild awards.

Jackson, understandably, was disappointed that her project did not come to fruition first. She had devoted more than two decades of her life to Dandridge's - visiting her apartment on Fountain Street in North Hollywood and even hiring a screenwriter to do research with Dorothy Dandridge," she says. "When I was 14 and doing Diff'rent Strokes, I wrote her manager. He sent me photographs of her. Talk about excited." "Maybe I shouldn't say this," she adds. "But a lot of friends said it was because of me speaking about Dorothy in interviews that created interest."

Let's be clear, though: Janet Jackson is not playa--hatin' on Halle Berry. "I truly am happy that someone did it" says Jackson, though she has yet to see the HBO film. "For her to take it where she did, producing it and being nominated and winning. Some people might say 'What a bunch of bullsh*t,' but it is the truth. My goal was for people to know who Dorothy Dandridge is. Now they do."

Like Dandridge - who gave birth to a severely retarded daughter and endured racism, failed marriages and even bankruptcy - Jackson has had her own share of personal challenges and stress. A marriage at age 18 to singer James DeBarge was painfully ruptured by his cocaine addiction. She was a 20-year-old divorcee when she hooked up with Elizondo. The two wed discreetly in 1991 and are now in the midst of a nasty divorce she won't discuss. Nor will she talk publicly about other rumors regarding her personal life. Manley Freid, Elizondo's attorney, says his client is hoping for "a [settlement] figure that's reasonable."

Jackson, meanwhile, is savoring the single life. When I tell her I imagine it must be hard for a celebrity of her stature to have a social life, she just shrugs, commenting that men aren't as intimidated by her as they used to be "I've been asked out by a few guys," she says with a smile. "In the past, I was never asked out. If I was interested in somebody, I'd have to ask them. If I was to wait around for dates, then forget it." Two failed marriages would wreak havoc on the self-esteem of many a woman, but everything about Jackson suggests a woman who is coming into her own. Years ago, she made her mark with a song called "Control." Now she lives it. Now 34, Janet Jackson is clearly running her own show. Yet for all she's achieved, the simple things many women take for granted are new to her. "You know, I probably seem like a 3-year-old with all this, but I never dated," she explains. "I got married when I was 18. Then I wanted to move out on my own, but my mother asked me to move back home, so I did. Rene and I started seeing each other, and we moved in together. And there I was again. This is my first time living on my own and dating."

Jackson says her friends are always weighing in on her love life, and she loves it. After being married, it's fun to engage in the post-date breakdown with your girls. Her friends, she says, worry that all those years sequestered in marriage have made her a little naive about love. "I don't think I'm as naive as they think," she says. " Granted, about some things, yes. But not everything."

Her willingness to be honest about what she's learned about love and life makes Jackson's music so popular with Honeygirls of every hue. "Young women - black girls, especially - identified with my music ever since Control," Jackson says. "It was like finally they heard someone speak about things they could relate to, what they've gone through." Today's airwaves are flooded with contenders for the R&B diva throne, but Jackson stays in the hunt by continually reinventing herself musically. "It boils down to what I've done in my career," she says, "that stems from how I was raised and the music I was listening to. It wasn't strictly R&B. It was so eclectic, such a mesh of different sounds. Incorporating that into my music - being able to do something funky, then doing something more pop - people hear that. I can work with Joni Mitchell, then turn around and work with Busta [Rhymes] or Chuck D. or Tip. I think it's accepted from me because it's who I am. I'm not trying to be something I'm not."

We're still cruising in her car, listening to a tune with pumping bass. Janet snaps her fingers appreciatively as she leans in to listen to the male singer's sexy voice. "Who is that?" she asks, with a smile on her lips. "Joe?" I offer. "I don't think so, I was listening to that album the other day," she says. "This song [we never do figure out the artist] has got such a New York sound."

Jackson grew up in Southern California but seems to be more in a New York state of mind lately. She's purchased a place in the Big Apple and is now closer to all her friends in the city, especially one in particular: Q-Tip. Although the news about her marriage is out, Janet isn't trying to put her business in the street. She insists she and Q-Tip are just friends. But this friendship is one that, clearly, makes her soul sing. Mention Q-Tip and she smiles a little broader. "I love him so much!" Jackson says. "He's so special to me. Before we even recorded the song together, we were talking almost every day on the phone. Sometimes [we were] talking about nothing or a bunch of nothing - sometimes getting not really serious issues. We're really close."

The two met on the set of Poetic Justice. Jackson played Justice, the poetry-writing hairdresser from South Central who fell in love with the late Tupac Shakur's character. Tip played her gangbanger boyfriend who was murdered in front of her eyes. Tip and Jackson only had one scene together, but it didn't lack for sizzle. She won't say, but my guess is that back on the set Mr. Tip slipped her a little tongue while she was still a (secretly) married woman. "I've got to mention that kiss to him one day," she says with a smirk. "I've got to ask him what was going through his head."