ANYWAY...
We were debating about whether or not Randy Jackson is the brother of Michael Jackson. I say no way, he says way. "He's part of the Jackson 5!" he says. Even his girlfriend got in on it. They even showed me a Wikipedia article on the Jackson 5 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jackson_5), and well, after reading this:
Randy unofficially began performing with the Jackson 5 in 1972, playing congas. He became an official member of the group in 1975, replacing Jermaine when the Jackson 5 moved to CBS Records and officially changed their name to "The Jacksons". (He is the brother the musician and record producer Randy Jackson, who serves as a judge on the television series American Idol),
I thought I was beaten.
But I just can't be beaten by my kid brother.
No way.
So I crept out from the hole where people who were proven wrong in trivia go to and Googled it up.
Thank God for Google.
The Randy Jackson of American Idol is NOT the Randy Jackson of the Jackson 5. Apparently Wikipedia screwed it up. Or at least mushed it up. (Sorry, guys, to be so judgmental of your work. I mean it did stir up some sort of confusion. Among my brother, his girlfriend, and myself, at least.)
Randall Darius Jackson was born on June 23, 1956 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is a Grammy Award-winning rock, bassist, singer, record producer, and Emmy Award-nominated television & radio personality, now best known as a judge on American Idol. This is how he USED to look like:
And after gastric bypass surgery, this is how he looks like now (although I think he gained a bit more weight in season 7):
The Randy Jackson of the Jackson 5, on the other hand, was born Steven Randall Jackson on October 29th, 1961 in Gary, Indiana. He was nicknamed "Little Randy", he was the ninth out of ten Jackson children to be born, (one was stillborn) and is the youngest son in the Jackson Family. He joined the Jackson 5 in 1972 at the age of 11. After The Jacksons split in 1990, Randy Jackson formed his own band, Randy & the Gypsys (sic), but this group lasted only 1 record, and he laid low afterwards. In early 2005, as his brother Michael was fighting a child molestation case, Randy became the manager of all of Michael Jackson's business affairs and was even appointed CEO of MJJ Productions. But after Michael's trial, Randy Jackson was no longer needed by MJJ Productions, and so goes his story.This is how he looks like:
So now that it's clear, I hope this debate, however trivial and irrelevant to the more important concerns of our daily lives, may now be laid to rest.Thank you, Randy Jackson. And you too, Randy Jackson.
