Michael Jackson may have been the King of Pop but he was also a greedy thief who lied about the reasons behind his plastic surgery.
These are the startling claim of legendary music mogul Quincy Jones, who produced Jackson’s hit albums Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad.
“Michael stole a lot of stuff. He stole a lot of songs,” Jones said, in a bizarre interview with Toronto’s David Marchese for New York magazine’s Vulture. “He was as Machiavellian as they come.
“Greedy, man. Greedy.”
Jones claims Jackson’s “Billie Jean” borrowed from Donna Summer’s “State of Independence” (which Jones produced). “The notes don’t lie, man.”
He also said Jackson refused to give session musician Greg Phillinganes his fair of royalties for coming up with part of “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough.”
Jones said Jackson hated his appearance because his abusive father always told him he was ugly – so he got hooked on plastic surgery. “He’d always justify it and say it was because of some disease he had. Bulls**t,” he recalled.
Elsewhere in the interview, Jones shared his first impression of the Beatles. “They were the worst musicians in the world. They were no-playing motherf**kers,” he said. “Paul was the worst bass player I ever heard. And Ringo? Don’t even talk about it.”
Although he’s friend’s with Bono, Jones shook his head when asked if U2 is still making good music. And he repeated his complaint about rap music. “It’s the same phrase over and over and over again,” he said.
As for today’s pop music? “It’s just loops, beats, rhymes and hooks. There ain’t no f**king songs. The greatest singer in the world cannot save a bad song.
“Producers now are ignoring all the musical principles of the previous generations. It’s a joke.”
(Jones listed some artists he likes, including Bruno Mars, Chance the Rapper, Kendrick Lamar and Ed Sheehan. “Sam Smith – he’s so open about being gay. I love it.”)
Jones called disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein “a bully,” said Oprah Winfrey “doesn’t have the chops” to run for president, and described U.S. president Donald Trump as being “limited mentally – a megalomaniac, narcissistic … he’s a f**king idiot.”
The music industry icon, who turns 85 in March, also claimed he dated Trump’s daughter Ivanka 12 years ago. “She had the most beautiful legs I ever saw in my life,” recalled Jones, whose actress daugther Rashida Jones is only five years older than Ivanka. “Wrong father, though.”
Click here to read the full conversation.