Think you know Michael Jackson? You’ve seen the moonwalk and you’ve heard “Thriller” a thousand times. But did you know he almost played Doctor Who? That his Neverland Ranch had its own fire department? That he secretly voiced a Simpsons character under a fake name?
These 30 fun facts about Michael Jackson go beyond the hits, the records, and the headlines. From the Jackson 5 backstory Motown carefully buried, to a $600 million catalog deal closed 15 years after his death, here’s the King of Pop you didn’t know.
Before the King of Pop: Michael Jackson’s Jackson 5 Years
1. It almost was the Jackson 6.
Marlon Jackson had a twin. Brandon was born premature in March 1957 and died of respiratory failure within 24 hours. The Jackson family went on to raise nine living children. At Michael’s 2009 memorial service, Marlon’s eulogy asked his late brother to give Brandon “a hug” on the other side.
2. Berry Gordy didn’t want to sign them.
In 1968, Bobby Taylor brought the Jackson brothers to Detroit and pushed Motown founder Berry Gordy to give them an audition. Gordy resisted. He had just landed Stevie Wonder and didn’t want more child acts on the roster. According to Taylor, Gordy told him bluntly: “I ain’t signing no kids.” He changed his mind only after watching the audition tape.
3. “I Want You Back” wasn’t theirs.
The Jackson 5’s debut single was originally called “I Wanna Be Free,” written by Motown’s in-house team for Gladys Knight & The Pips. Berry Gordy briefly considered handing it to Diana Ross before deciding it suited the new family act. The team rewrote the lyrics, renamed it, and sent 11-year-old Michael to the booth. It hit No. 1.
4. Diana Ross didn’t actually discover them.
Their debut album was titled Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5, which heavily implied Ross found the group. That was Motown PR. The actual scout was Bobby Taylor of Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers, with an early assist from Gladys Knight. The Ross story was a marketing two-fer, launching her solo career and the Jacksons’ in one stroke.
5. Motown made him lie about his age.
In August 1969, Motown showcased the Jackson 5 for music industry insiders at the Daisy club in Los Angeles. The label billed Michael as “an eight-year-old sensation.” He was several days shy of his 11th birthday. The brothers were coached to repeat the lie in interviews. A younger lead singer made better marketing for the group’s bubblegum-soul image.
6. His first solo wasn’t with his brothers.
In 1963, at age five, Michael climbed onto the stage of his elementary school kindergarten program in Gary, Indiana, and sang “Climb Every Mountain” from The Sound of Music. His mother, Katherine later testified she was nervous he’d freeze. He didn’t miss a note. His grandfather, watching from the audience, cried.
Studio Stories That Never Made the Liner Notes
7. He cried at the end of every take of “She’s Out of My Life.”
Quincy Jones had been holding the song for three years, originally meaning to give it to Frank Sinatra. When Michael recorded it for Off the Wall, he broke down at the end of every take, by Jones’s count, somewhere between 8 and 11 of them. Jones kept the sobs on the master.
8. He secured the highest royalty rate in the music industry.
After Off the Wall sold over 20 million copies, Michael renegotiated his Epic contract for 1980. He walked away with 37 percent of wholesale album profit. At the time, no other artist in music came close. The new rate set the financial baseline for everything he released afterward.
9. Invincible is still the most expensive album ever made.
Recording it cost roughly $30 million. More than two decades later, no one has topped that. Michael started in 1997 and finished only eight weeks before the 2001 release. He booked multiple studios simultaneously, used only one, and paid producer Rodney Jerkins a retainer equivalent to two years of salary just to keep him exclusive.
10. Paul McCartney taught him to buy publishing rights.
In 1983, McCartney invited Michael to dinner at his London home. Over the table, McCartney pulled out a leather-bound book listing every song he owned the publishing rights to. Two years later, Michael bought the entire ATV catalog (which included 251 Lennon-McCartney compositions) for $47.5 million. McCartney later called it dodgy: “To be someone’s friend, and then buy the rug they’re standing on.”
11. Three armed men robbed 30,000 copies of Dangerous before its release.
Five days before the November 1991 launch, robbers hit a Los Angeles warehouse and walked out with the pre-release stock. The leak didn’t slow it down. Dangerous still debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and went on to sell over 32 million copies worldwide.
12. Prince refused to sing “Bad” with him.
Quincy Jones suggested the title track be a duet with Prince. Prince agreed to listen to the demo, then balked at the opening line. He told Chris Rock years later he wasn’t going to sing “your butt is mine” to another man, period. He offered Michael a different song instead. Michael passed.
The Movies, TV Shows, and Crossovers That Almost Happened
13. He almost played Doctor Who.
In 1988, Paramount Pictures was developing a Doctor Who feature film. Michael was the studio’s top pick to play the Time Lord, and reportedly “quite keen” to take the role. The project collapsed before the cameras rolled. Paramount’s reported backup choice if Jackson declined: Bill Cosby.
14. He voiced a Simpsons character under a fake name.
Michael was a Simpsons fan. In 1990 he called Matt Groening and offered to guest-star. The result was “Stark Raving Dad” (1991), in which he voiced a heavyset white psychiatric patient who believed he was Michael Jackson. Contract restrictions kept him uncredited under the alias “John Jay Smith.” He also composed the song “Happy Birthday Lisa” for the episode.
15. Captain EO was the most expensive film per minute ever made at the time.
In 1986, Disney parks debuted the 17-minute 3D space-musical starring Michael. Francis Ford Coppola directed. George Lucas produced. The budget reportedly hit $30 million, averaging $1.76 million per finished minute. The attraction ran at four Disney parks until its final showing in 2015.
16. He helped design his own Sega arcade game.
Michael was a serious arcade gamer. In 1989, he reached out to Sega about making a game tied to his film Moonwalker. He helped develop the project himself. The arcade beat-em-up launched in July 1990 with Michael as the playable hero, defeating enemies through dance moves, and topped the RePlay arcade charts that September.
17. Freddie Mercury walked out on their duets because of a llama.
In 1983, Mercury and Michael recorded three songs at Michael’s home studio: “There Must Be More to Life Than This,” “State of Shock,” and “Victory.” None were finished. Mid-session, Mercury reportedly called Queen’s manager begging to escape. The reason: Michael kept bringing his pet llama, Louie, into the recording booth.
18. “Scream” still holds the Guinness record for most expensive music video.
The 1995 video, directed by Mark Romanek and starring Michael alongside his sister Janet, cost $7 million. About $2 million of that went to the siblings’ assistants, security, trailers, and entourage. Three decades later, no one has topped it.
The Pepsi Burn That Changed Michael Jackson Forever
19. The 1983 Pepsi deal was the largest celebrity endorsement in history.
That November, the Jacksons signed a $5 million sponsorship contract with PepsiCo. At the time, no other celebrity had landed anything close. The first commercial shoot was scheduled for January 27, 1984.
20. The pyrotechnics ignited his hair on the sixth take.
Michael was filming the Pepsi spot at the Shrine Auditorium in front of 3,000 fans. Six takes in, the fireworks went off too early. The flash ignited his heavily gelled hair. He kept dancing for several seconds before realizing his scalp was burning. He suffered second-degree burns.
21. He donated the entire settlement to the hospital that treated him.
Pepsi settled out of court for $1.5 million. Michael handed every dollar to Brotman Medical Center in Culver City, where he had been treated. The facility renamed its burn unit the Michael Jackson Burn Center. He never sued Pepsi.
22. He was almost completely bald for the rest of his life.
The burns left permanent damage on his scalp. From 1984 onward, Michael wore wigs or hairpieces in nearly every public appearance. Multiple hair-restoration surgeries failed. The 2009 autopsy report later confirmed the extent of the damage.
23. He still re-signed with Pepsi for $10 million.
Despite the accident, Michael agreed to a second multi-year deal in the late 1980s, reportedly worth $10 million across 20 countries. The contract underwrote his Bad album promotion and the 1987-88 Bad World Tour, which drew 504,000 fans across seven nights at Wembley Stadium and earned a Guinness World Record.
24. His Pepsi commercial was the first Western ad broadcast in the Soviet Union.
In 1988, a spot featuring Michael performing “Bad” aired on Soviet state television. His music had been banned there for years. The slogan “Choice of a New Generation” appeared in Cyrillic. The vocals stayed in English. Pepsi was the first Western company allowed to advertise behind the Iron Curtain.
Records, Royalty, and a $600 Million Afterlife
25. Neverland Ranch had its own fire department.
Michael bought 2,700 acres near Santa Ynez, California, in 1988 for around $19 million. He named it Neverland. The property included two railroads, a Ferris wheel, a carousel, a movie theater, a 50-seat zoo, a 4-acre lake, and a private fire department staffed full-time. Annual upkeep costs an estimated $5 million.
26. He was crowned an actual king in 1992.
That February, Michael flew to West Africa. In Gabon, more than 100,000 people met him at the airport. In the Ivorian village of Krindjabo, the Sanwi tribal chief crowned him “King Sani” on a golden throne. He signed documents in French and English formalizing the title, and drew larger crowds across Côte d’Ivoire than Pope John Paul II had on previous visits.
27. Thriller was the first music video ever inducted into the U.S. National Film Registry.
In December 2009, six months after Michael’s death, the Library of Congress added the 14-minute John Landis-directed video to its preservation archive alongside The Muppet Movie and Dog Day Afternoon. Selection officials called Thriller “the most famous music video of all time.”
28. He’s been the world’s top-earning dead celebrity nearly every year since 2010.
Forbes has tracked posthumous earnings since 2001. Michael’s estate has held the No. 1 spot in most years since 2010. In 2018, the estate brought in roughly $400 million. By 2024, total posthumous earnings exceeded $2.4 billion, fueled by streaming, MJ: The Musical on Broadway, and catalog sales.
29. The Thriller jacket sold for $1.8 million.
In June 2011, the red-and-black leather jacket Michael wore in the Thriller video sold at Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills. The pre-sale estimate was $200,000 to $400,000. Texas gold trader Milton Verret won the bidding. Proceeds went to the Shambala Preserve, which had taken in Michael’s two Bengal tigers after he left Neverland in 2006.
30. Sony bought half his catalog for $600 million in 2024.
On August 21 of that year, a California appeals court approved the sale, one of the largest single-artist music catalog deals on record. Katherine Jackson had sued to block it, arguing it violated her son’s wishes. The court ruled the will gave executors broad authority. The deal was concluded 15 years after Michael’s death.
These 30 fun facts about Michael Jackson cover only the easy stuff. The new biopic skips most of them. The biographies miss others. To test how much of this actually stuck, the 25-question Michael Jackson trivia quiz on this site goes deeper into Thriller, the moonwalk, and the stranger details of the King of Pop’s life.
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How Well Do You Really Know Michael Jackson? Take This 25-Question Quiz to Find Out
