25. Prince Turned to Voodoo in His Feud With Michael Jackson
By the late 1980s, the King of Pop and the Purple One were at the top of their game, and despite the bad blood, Quincy Jones tried to bring them together in a collaboration. His first attempt was the charity single We Are the World, which Michael Jackson co-wrote and performed in. Prince promptly refused to participate. A few years later, Jones tried to bring them together on the song Bad, where they would sing opposite each other and perform jointly on the music video. Prince expressed some interest but eventually declined. MJ did the music video with Wesley Snipes.
Amidst the negotiations about a duet on “Bad”, Prince did not forget about the feud. He showed up at MJ’s home one day in an overcoat, with a white box labeled “Camille” – Prince’s nickname for MJ. Its contents terrified the Single Gloved One. According to Quincy Jones: “The box had all kinds of stuff—some cuff links with Tootsie Rolls on them. Michael was scared to death—he thought there was some voodoo in there. I wanted to take it, because I knew Michael was gonna throw it away“.
