Janet Jackson Applauds ‘Incredible Father’ Joe Amid His Cancer Battle

Janet Jackson paid tribute to her father, Joe Jackson, during a speech at the 2018 Radio Disney Music Awards Friday, hours after news of her father’s cancer battle broke.

The 52-year-old Jackson received the Impact Award, which was then renamed the Janet Jackson Award, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

“It’s beautiful, it’s humbling to be recognized as someone that has had a positive impact, but if I have been fortunate enough to impact others it is only because I, myself, have been greatly impacted by positive people in my life,” Jackson told the audience, reports PEOPLE.

“My mother nourished me with the most extravagant love imaginable, my father, my incredible father, drove me to be the best that I can,” Jackson continued. “My siblings set an incredibly high standard for artistic excellence… Sometimes, having an impact can be as simple as a smile, a handshake, or a hug.”

Jackson delivered the speech only a few hours after TMZ and The Daily Mail reported on Friday that 89-year-old Joe is on his death bed. He is reportedly in the last stages of a battle with terminal cancer, and his doctors believe it can no longer be treated.

Sources close to Jackson said she is among the family members who have been kept from seeing her father in Las Vegas by his handlers. They reportedly let Joe’s wife Katherine, daughter Rebbie, daughter Joh’Vonnie and granddaughter Yashi Brown visit on Tuesday.

Jackson’s brother Jermaine told The Daily Mail the family has not been given updates on Joe’s health.

“No one knew what was going on — we shouldn’t have to beg, plead, and argue to see our own father, especially at a time like this. We have been hurting. We were not being told where he was and couldn’t get the full picture. Even from the doctor. My mother was worried sick,” Jermaine told The Daily Mail.

Jermaine, a former member of the Jackson 5, added, “He’s very very frail, he doesn’t have long. The family needs to be by his bedside — that’s our only intention in his final days.”

Jackson has been slowly re-entering the public eye herself, following a standout performance at the 2018 Billboard Music Awards last month, before she accepted the Billboard Icon Award. Jackson ran through a string of hits, and has said she is working on new music.

She is also on the cover of the July/August issue of Essence, for which she wrote a story about her battle with depression and search for happiness.

“The height of happiness is holding my baby son in my arms and hearing him coo, or when I look into his smiling eyes and watch him respond to my tenderness,” Jackson wrote. “When I kiss him. When I sing him softly to sleep. During those sacred times, happiness is everywhere. Happiness is in gratitude to God. Happiness is saying, ‘Thank you, God, for my life, my energy and my capacity to grow in love.’”

Jackson and her estranged husband Wissam Al Mana, share a 1-year-old son, Eissa.

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