7. The Purple One’s Other Grudge
Michael Jackson and Prince were two of modern music’s greatest icons. Both peaked at roughly the same time, and shared the 1980s as that decade’s biggest stars. Unsurprisingly, rumors swirled that they had developed a rivalry, which evolved into a grudge. Rumors that were eventually confirmed as true. What is surprising is just how serious things got: they developed a grudge so extreme that at one point, Prince tried to run MJ over with his limousine. The duo had taken different paths to reach the top. MJ was a successful prodigy as a child singer with his brothers in the Jackson 5, and he made a smooth transition into an even more successful adult singer when he went solo and released Off the Wall in 1979. He followed that up with the best-selling album of all time, Thriller.
Prince’s path was grittier, with a series of underground albums, before his first hit single. By the early 1980s, when Prince was about to take off, MJ was already a cultural juggernaut. In 1983, Michael Jackson was at the top of the world after the release of Thriller. Although not in the same league, Prince was about to take off thanks to hits such Little Red Corvette and 1999. There was already talk that Prince might become the next MJ, and that did not sit well with the King of Pop. MJ and Prince revered and were influenced by James Brown. At one of his concerts that year that was attended by both, the funk legend invited MJ onstage to do a little song and dance. MJ killed it. Then he whispered to James Brown: “Call Prince up – I dare him to follow me“.
