Janet Jackson Repeats False Claims About Kamala Harris’s Race

There was a swift backlash on Saturday after the pop star Janet Jackson challenged Vice President Kamala Harris’s racial identity in an interview with The Guardian. On Sunday, a man who identified himself as her manager apologized for her statements.

Then Ms. Jackson’s representatives quickly distanced her from that man and his apology, saying he was not her manager and was not authorized to speak for her.

The unusual turn of events began when The Guardian published a wide-ranging interview with Ms. Jackson timed to promote the European leg of her concert tour. When the reporter, Nosheen Iqbal, said the United States “could be on the verge of voting in its first Black female president,” referring to Ms. Harris, Ms. Jackson responded by saying: “Well, you know what they supposedly said? She’s not Black. That’s what I heard. That she’s Indian.”

When Ms. Iqbal replied that Ms. Harris, the Democratic nominee, is the daughter of an Indian woman and a Jamaican father who is Black, Ms. Jackson responded, “Her father’s white.”

“That’s what I was told,” she added. “I mean, I haven’t watched the news in a few days. I was told that they discovered her father was white.”

Across social media, people expressed bewilderment over Ms. Jackson’s comments. On “The View” on Monday, one of the hosts, Ana Navarro, said Ms. Jackson had been “very irresponsible” and had used the Guardian interview “carelessly, to spread misinformation.”