J.D. On Why He & Janet Jackson Broke Up: ‘She Wouldn’t Move to Atlanta’ [Video]

It’s been over a decade since Pop icon Janet Jackson and legendary producer Jermaine Dupri called it quits, yet it’s not uncommon for her name to find its way into his interviews.

Historically coy about the topic of their nearly decade long romance, recently J.D. opened up on T.I.‘s podcast, ‘ExpediTIously,’ and discussed what ultimately led to the demise of their relationship (even though the two have remained good friends in the years since).

Hear what he said on this topic and more inside:

Start at 45:45:

ON HOW THEY MET:

“We met at her concert at The Omni [Coliseum]. This is when Jermaine Dupri was just a producer. I wasn’t nobody. I didn’t have no record out yet or nothing. Nobody knew me besides what I did for Kris [Kross] and Xscape. We go to her show and I’m part of their entourage… Kris Kross goes in to meet Janet Jackson, and the bodyguard hit me with the hand.

So they’re like ‘That’s our man!’ They’re telling her, and when they tell her, she had to vouch for me, ‘Let him in, he cool.’ When I came in, it was almost like the Diana Ross concert. She started talking to me ‘You must be the special one… Why they ain’t wanna leave you outside?’ … It seemed like an energy, right? At that point I was just like, I’m gonna see you again.”

ON HOW THEY GOT CLOSER:

“I took her to Magic City. I exposed her to a lot of life that I didn’t even know I could expose a person to. You think when a person is that famous, that rich, they know everything. They’ve seen everything. But it was a lot world that we was living in, cultural wise, that they hadn’t gotten in L.A. That’s where we started hitting it off. We were showing each other multiple things.”

ON WHY THEY BROKE UP:

“I started seeing so many other things that I wanted to do, and so many other places that I wanted to do. I started thinking that marriage for me wasn’t gonna work. Just, something about it. When you feel like you’re ready to get married, you don’t have no answers, you just know what it is. I was in the space, I felt married… I think the only thing that created a difference for me was the fact that we didn’t live together. We had an eight year, nine year relationship, but we didn’t live together… I feel like that’s a part where you really determine if you’re strong. She wasn’t willing to move to Atlanta. She was willing to come out here for a couple of weeks. But living in Atlanta, for her, just didn’t really seem like L.A. I wasn’t ready to move to Malibu… I like it, but it aint… It’s just something about being [in Atlanta.]”

[main photo source: Getty Images]