Michael Jackson's facts

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Michael had a lamb named after a character Sidney Poitier played, Mr Tibbs.

Michael loved playing phone pranks on people, and would often dial random numbers and prank them without their ever knowing it was him, as well as doing it to his friends.

Michael drank a lot of Red Bull and ate a lot of KFC.

Michael once showed up a party PDiddy was throwing just to meet the “girl with the derriere” aka Beyonce and dance with her. 

The demo title for the song “Bad” was “Pee”, likely because it was due to be a collaboration with the musician Prince and “Pee” was code for his initial “P”.  

There are two naming traditions in the Jackson family: naming a son after yourself and the name Prince. There is a Jackson son named after every male member of the Jackson family (Sigmund, Marlon, Toriano, Stevana/Randy, Jermaine), and Michael had a grandfather and great grandfather named Prince. This is why Michael named his sons as such.

Many of Michael’s most famous outfits are borrowed. His black sequin cardigan for Billie Jean was something he took from his mother, his white Thriller suit was something he asked to borrow from the photographer, and many others.

This seemed to rub off on Blanket, once when a fan asked Michael to autograph his hat, Michael said that Blanket liked it and asked if he could keep it, so in exchange Michael and Blanket signed Blanket’s tee shirt and gave it to him  

Star of the first season of America’s Next Top Model, Giselle Samson, was featured in men’s magazine “Stuff” in early 2003 during the show and she said there that she idolized Michael; reading this, Michael then gave her a call and invited her to Neverland.  

Michael believed dancing and music was a way the universe had of expressing itself.  

Michael was a huge fan of art, especially the Renaissance artists and the Pre-Raphaelites.

Lionel Richie’s band the Commodores were a support act for the Jackson 5 when Michael was just 12.

As a kid on tour Michael would prank Lionel with itching powder in his hats, ice in his shoes, and buckets of water over his door. Lionel says the Commodores staged a pillow fight with the Jacksons in revenge for all their pranks. 

Michael was fascinated by the Ancient Egyptians and Tutankhamen, one of his online email addresses was even KingTut777. 

Michael once had the police called out in 1989 because he was wearing a disguise while shopping for a ring and they suspected he was a possible thief.  

Michael was detained while driving his Rolls Royce in 1981 because they thought his car looked “stolen.” Michael later told his mother he was just excited to have been inside a police cell. 

Michael loved the album What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye, and kept the sleeve framed on a shelf in Encino. 

Michael believed Stevie Wonder was a “musical prophet” and was there throughout a lot of the taping of his album, Songs In The Key Of Life.  

Sometimes Michael would go out in disguise during Halloween trick or treating with friends and his kids and it would be the one time of the year he could blend in.

In 2008 while at a Halloween party with his kids, people thought he was a Michael Jackson impersonator and played Thriller when he walked in.  

Marlon Brando’s son was a bodyguard and close friend to Michael throughout his life. He can even be spotted in the cinema watching the movie with him during Thriller.   

Michael loved the PBS documentary about Jack Johnson and the racism he endured, “Unforgivable Blackness”.

Michael has had fans break in and stalk him relentlessly throughout the years. Some would be found sleeping in his loft, his kitchen, his bushes, by his garbage, would park outside his house and sleep there, others would turn up at Neverland with suitcases announcing they were about to move in before the police would be called. When Michael found one fan who had been living in his kitchen, Michael let her have something to eat with him before his bodyguards took her away.

Michael’s mother was the same way and when fans would come to their home in the early 70s she would let them sit and eat with them, sometimes they’d be there till the middle of the night at the kitchen table because Katherine would be too polite to tell them to leave.

Michael would get in trouble for feeding the rats and mice who lived in his home as a kid.

Michael wrote the lyrics to Black or White 20 minutes before he had to sing it. 

Michael composed some of the music for the SEGA video game, Sonic 3, but at the time game consoles had poor sound quality so Michael didn’t like the result and therefore wasn’t credited. Brad Buxer has confirmed that one of the pieces would later inspire the song Stranger In Moscow.  

There’s lots of footage of Michael in the studio that has never been released, footage of him singing with Paul McCartney, singing some of the Bad and Dangerous albums, and all of the Invincible studio sessions.

MJ told his bodyguards that one of the things he would have loved to have been able to do was just walk into a bar and say, “Bartender, give me a beer.”  

Blanket keeps his hair long to remind himself of his father; Paris sleeps with a jacket of Michael’s under her pillow; Prince likes listening to Arabic prayer because it reminds him of being in Bahrain with his father.

After Michael’s passing fans got together and raised money to create a children’s home named “Everland” in Liberia, to house 50 orphaned children.