WHY MICHAEL JACKSON AND PRINCE HATED EACH OTHER: THE FEUD OVER “WE ARE THE WORLD:”
Prince couldn’t bring himself to do it. That was partly because of his natural shyness: the infamously withdrawn and perfectionist star was reluctant to squeeze into a booth with a-listers such as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.
A bigger problem, though, was We Are The World itself – an avalanche of naff co-written by Richie and Prince’s nemesis, Michael Jackson. The best Prince would do was offer to lay down a solo – provided he could do so on his own. “I don’t need him to f______ play guitar!” retorted We Are The World producer and Jackson collaborator Quincy Jones.
In the Eighties, the Jacko-Prince feud somehow flew under the radar. However, it is front and centre of a new Netflix documentary about the making of We Are The World. The Greatest Night in Pop doesn’t shy away from Prince and his non-involvement in the sessions. Singer Sheila E reveals to Netflix that she was invited because the producers hoped she would encourage Prince, with whom she had recorded extensively, to tag along.
“It was getting late, and I was looking forward to singing one of the verses,” she tells the filmmakers. “But they kept asking, ‘Well, do you think you can get Prince here?’ And I’m like, wow. This is weird. and I just started feeling like I’m being used because they want Prince to show up and the longer they keep me, maybe Prince will show up.”
Prince didn’t like We Are The World, describing it as “horrible”. He had an even bigger dislike of Jackson – a hatred so embittered Prince couldn’t bring himself to express his sympathies after Jackson’s shock death in June 2009, aged just 50.
The feeling was mutual, no doubt inspiring a classic case of media one-upmanship in the late 1980s:
Larry Stessel [Epic Records executive]:
Michael called me one day and said, “I want to have a nickname, like ‘The Boss’ or ‘The King.’” I said, “Well, Bruce Springsteen is ‘The Boss,’ and Elvis Presley is ‘The King.’ You can’t be the King because you’ll never live it down. The press will rip you apart.” But Michael would not let this go. He hired his own personal publicist, Bob Jones. And one day, Bob issued a press release announcing that Michael Jackson was the King of Pop. Michael went rogue on us. And sure enough, he got slammed. Everyone laughed.
Likely with one five foot two exception, of course.