A Music Rivalry That Lasted for Decades
Prince did not forget about the feud amidst the negotiations about a duet on Bad. He showed up at Michael Jackson’s home one day in an overcoat, with a white box labeled “Camille” – Prince’s nickname for MJ. Its contents terrified his rival. Per 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“. MJ eventually came to see his feud with Prince as a one-sided beef that he simply could not understand or explain. As he told an interviewer: “I have proven myself since I was real little. It’s not fair. He feels like I’m his opponent…I hope he changes because boy, he’s gonna get hurt.
He’s the type that might commit suicide or something…I don’t like to be compared to Prince.” He described Prince as “one of the rudest people I have ever met,” and that he had been “mean and nasty to my family“. By the twenty first century, things had thawed a bit, but Prince had not forgotten. In 2006, Black Eyed Peas leader will.i.am invited MJ to a Prince performance in Las Vegas. When Prince discovered that his old rival there, he walked out into the audience, and began to play bass in his face. As Rolling Stone editor Steve Knopper put it, it was “like aggressive bass slap“. An outraged MJ asked Will, “Will, why do you think Prince was playing bass in my face? … Prince has always been a meanie. He’s just a big meanie. He’s always been not nice to me“.
