Jackson joked about that very scrutiny to J Randy Taraborrelli, who penned the biography Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness. "Why not just tell people I'm an alien from Mars?" he said. "Tell them I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight. They'll believe anything you say, because you're a reporter. But if I, Michael Jackson, were to say, 'I'm an alien ...', people would say, 'Oh, man, that Michael Jackson is nuts. He's cracked up! You can't believe a thing that comes out of his mouth.'"
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30 thrilling facts about Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson performed at the Super Bowl XXVII Halftime show in 1993, drawing an audience of 133 million TV viewers.Steve Granitz/WireImage/Getty Images
2. Close pal Elizabeth Taylor was the first one to dub him the "King of Pop"
Michael Jackson's friendship with another Hollywood icon, Elizabeth Taylor,spanned decades — it was actually the Oscar-winning movie star who first crowned the singer with his signature sobriquet. At the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards, Liz was on hand to present MJ with the Heritage Award for Career Achievement, during which she introduced him as the "true king of pop, rock and soul."
4. Half a billion people tuned in for the premiere of his "Black or White" music video
According to the Guinness World Records, the television premiere of Michael Jackson's "Black or White" drew an estimated 500 million people in 27 countries on November 14, 1991, the largest TV audience ever for a music video premiere. The John Landis-directed clip spanned 11 minutes, reportedly cost $4 million to make and features a starry cast including actor Macaulay Culkin, supermodel Tyra Banks and cartoon character Homer Simpson.
5. He outbid Paul McCartney himself for 250 Beatles songs, at a cool $47 million
Related: Michael Jackson’s Explosive Version of Lennon, McCartney Classic Stuns Fans on Global Beatles Day
Michael Jackson purchased 250-plus Beatles songs in August 1985, outbidding Paul McCartney himself.Dave Hogan/Getty Images
7. KFC chicken was Michael's must-have fast food while touring
In the 2007 biography Michael Jackson Conspiracy, author Aphrodite Jones detailed Jackson's mid-flight food preferences while touring, citing a 2003 passenger profile that revealed the singer's love for KFC chicken, as well as the brand's mashed potatoes with gravy, corn on the cob and biscuits with strawberry jelly. Sounds a lot better than most airplane food, huh?
Related: The Top 10 Michael Jackson Music Videos of All Time
9. He is the highest-earning dead celebrity of the century (yes, even bigger than Elvis)
10. He holds the record for most Grammys won in a single night
At the 26th Annual Grammy Awards on February 28, 1984, Jackson took home a record-breaking eight trophies off the strength of Thriller, the most Grammys won by a single artist in one night., per The Recording Academy. That historic haul included wins for Record of the Year (for "Beat It"), Album of the Year and Producer of the Year, which Jackson shared with Thriller co-producer Quincy Jones. Jackson's achievement would later be tied by Santana in 2000 at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards.
Related: Michael Jackson Just Made Music History — Again
Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards, where the singer took home a record-making eight awards in one night.CBS/Getty Images)
12. Michael nearly played David Bowie's role in the '80s classic Labyrinth
Jackson dabbled in acting over his storied career, playing the Scarecrow in 1978's The Wiz and the titular hero in 1986's Captain EO. But he did miss out on a pretty iconic screen role: as Jareth the Goblin King in Jim Henson's 1986 musical-fantasy flick Labyrinth, a part famously played by fellow music icon David Bowie.
Jackson would bring the Burmese python with him into the recording studio, a fact that displeased his frequent collaborator, Quincy Jones. “Yes, I was [scared], man,” the legendary record producer revealed in an interview with The Guardian. “He wrapped himself around my leg. He used to crawl across the console… I wasn’t very comfortable with that.”
14. And his pet chimp Bubbles bit actress Rashida Jones when she was a kid
15. His childhood crush was Diana Ross, and he regularly joked about marrying her one day
Fellow music legend Diana Ross was a regular fixture in Michael Jackson's life over the decades, from his Motown beginnings to their The Wiz days through to his 2009 passing. (She was reportedly included in his will.) That close bond reportedly started off as a boyhood crush, an infatuation that Jackson himself confirmed in his 1988 autobiography Moonwalk.
Related: This ‘Brady Bunch’ Star Went on Dates With Michael Jackson: ‘I Was in Love’
Michael Jackson had a widely reported crush on close friend and collaborator Diana Ross, which he detailed in his Moonwalk autobiography.Images Press/Getty Images
Related: Mariah Carey ‘Upset’ Her Michael Jackson Charity Collab May Never Be Released
17. His 1987 album Bad produced an unprecedented five number-one singles
The charts were certainly on the performer's mind during the creation of the album, with Spike Lee's 2012 Bad documentary revealing that Jackson wrote "100 million" on a mirror to motivate himself to hit his album-sale goals. That Billboard feat wouldn't be replicated until nearly a quarter-century later by pop star Katy Perry in 2011.
"The gang members couldn't dance so they formed the ring and watched," Giraldi added. "And the [dancers] all started to dance with Michael Peters and Vince Paterson. When Michael Jackson comes down and does what he does, I remember looking at the faces of all the Crips and Bloods lined up and their expressions as they listened to that music and watched those kids dance...[they] had that look like, 'You know what? With all our wars and vendettas and stuff, that's cool right there. That's something we'll never be able to do.'"
19. Michael was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame not once, but twice.
Related: Only 17 Artists Have Ever Achieved This Hall of Fame Double
20. He had a way deeper voice than he let on.
Though he was known for a high-pitched speaking voice and a smooth, high tenor singing voice, Michael actually had a very wide vocal range and could effortlessly sing at a baritone level, as his vocal coach Seth Riggs revealed in a 2017 interview with the Red Bull Music Academy. "Michael had this enormous range. He would go from low E flat to E flats and Gs above high C," he said of the performer. You can see that vocal dexterity in training sessions posted to Riggs' website, including this one with 1990s-era Jackson.
Michael Jackson, seen here during his BAD tour in 1988, had a way wider singing range than one might expect.Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images
22. That iconic red-and-black Thriller jacket made auction history in 2011.
Speaking of expensive stuff, the most expensive jacket ever sold at auction was the famous red-and-black leather jacket memorably worn by Jackson in his 1983 Thriller video. The coat sold for $1.8 million in June 2011 during a scale organized by Julien's Auction in Beverly Hills, California, according to Guinness World Records. In today's money, that's about $2.65 million.
24. His first date was with historic Oscar winner Tatum O'Neal.
In his 1988 memoir Moonwalk, Jackson revealed that his first-ever date was with a young Tatum O'Neal, a fellow child star who is the daughter of actor Ryan O'Neal and is the youngest person ever to win a competitive Academy Award (for 1973's Paper Moon).
25. Michael tried to buy Marvel Comics so he could play Spider-Man.
In the early 1990s, Spider-Man superfan Michael Jackson attempted to acquire Marvel Comics with the hopes of producing and starring as Peter Parker in a film adaptation of the webbed wonder.
The deal didn't go through, but famed comic-book writer Stan Lee discussed Jackson's superhero dreams in a 2012 interview with Moviefone: "Yes, he wanted to [buy Marvel]. He felt that would be the only way that he could play Spider-Man. [Laughs]." Though Lee conceded that Jackson would "have been very good" as the famous webslinger, he added of the franchise's eventual star: "I must say that Tobey Maguire was wonderful."
Michael Jackson performing onstage in 1987.Dave Hogan/Getty Images
"He would religiously work on dances every Sunday. And it was over a period of, I don't know, a few weeks because you're doing it just once a week for a couple of hours or so," Daniel told TIME magazine of their moonwalk sessions. "It wasn't so regimented, like, O.K., here's this step and this step. It was like some of it was having fun, some of it was acting goofy, moving around like Charlie Chaplin and poking faces at each other. Some of it was, we were just gelling, you know, with the dances. And some of it was concentrating on a particular move, but a lot of it was two guys just having fun and showing dances."
27. Michael was seriously considered to play Doctor Who in a Paramount movie.
According to his sisterLa Toya Jackson, Michael was buried with one of his iconic white gloves, a pair of sunglasses, strings of pearl beads and "a beautiful big gold belt, like a belt that you win being a boxer," as she revealed to journalist Barbara Waltersduring a 20/20 interview.
29. He counts Stevie Wonder, Tracy Chapman and Samuel L. Jackson as cousins.
30. Thriller is still the biggest album of all time, four decades later
In November 1982, Jackson released his sixth studio album, Thriller, and turned the entire music industry on its head. According to American Songwriter, the seminal record— which features hit singles like "Billie Jean," "Beat It," "Wanna Be Starin' Something," "Human Nature and the title track — broke a record with 37 weeks at No. 1 and is still to this day considered the best-selling album of all time (according to Guinness World Records) with an estimated 67 million copies sold worldwide.
Next, Who Is ‘Michael’ Star Jaafar Jackson and How Is He Related to the King of Pop?
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