On the Ellen Show today, will.i.am confirmed the details of one of the most notorious incidents in the Prince-Michael Jackson rivalry.
It all started when Jackson called Will and asked him for tickets to a Black Eyed Peas show in Vegas. But it turned out MJ actually couldn't make it because he had to "put the kids to sleep."
So Will wondered if he'd like to attend a later show he was doing with Prince. MJ balked at first because he didn't think Prince liked him. But Will got Prince to extend a special invite, and was sitting in a box with MJ during the show when Prince left the stage, got right in The King Of Pop's face, and started aggressively playing his bass guitar.
"What's up with Prince playing the bass in my face," Will remembers MJ saying, impersonating the voice of the late legend.Steve Knopper wrote about the incident in MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson. But it had never been independently confirmed. This is what Knopper wrote happened in the aftermath of Prince rubbing his ability to play instruments right in Jackson's grill.
Michael was outraged. And then started going on. ‘Prince has always been a meanie. He’s just a big meanie. He’s always been not nice to me. Everybody says Prince is this great legendary Renaissance man and I’m just a song-and-dance man, but I wrote “Billie Jean” and I wrote “We Are the World” and I’m a songwriter too.’Michael Jackson vs. Prince -- who you got?