According to Sheila E., Prince once recorded a version of Michael Jackson’s “Bad” but then immediately deleted it.
Speaking with Jason Matheson of The Jason Show, the legendary singer and drummer, 66, denied rumors that Prince and Jackson had any jealousy between them. “They hung out, we all hung out,” she said, then revealing she was ready to share a Jackson-Prince story she’s “never told” about the “Bad” duet that never was.
“So we get the song ‘Bad’ from Michael and we’re here at Paisley [Park]. And Prince is like, ‘Wait a minute.’ He said, ‘Michael wants me to sing this song with him.’ So he played it for us. He goes, ‘Your butt is mine…’ He said, ‘What?! Your butt is mine?’ And he just walked away, he said, ‘Uh, uh.’”
Iin a 1997 interview with Chris Rock, Prince clarifies why he turned down the collaboration.
“The first line in that song is ‘your butt is mine.’” Hr continutes, “Now I said, ‘Who’s gonna sing that to whom? ‘Cause you sure ain’t singing it to me. And I sure ain’t singing it to you… So right there, we got a problem.”
“That Wesley Snipes character, that would’ve been me,” Prince added of the song’s music video. “Now you run that video in your mind.”
Even though the collaboration never came to fruition and he turned down a starring role in the ‘Bad’ music video (which then went to Wesley Snipes), Prince reportedly turned to Jackson and his management after the meeting and graciously stated: “It will be a big hit even if I’m not on it.”
As Sheila E. now recalls, Prince’s consideration of “Bad” didn’t end there, as she joined him to “re-record” the song at his iconic Paisley Park home studio in Minnesota. “It was so funky, it was so amazing. It was an incredible rendition of what it should’ve been,” she said on The Jason Show. “And then after we recorded it, we’re like, ‘Oh my God, we can’t wait for Michael to hear it.’”
But, for whatever reason, Prince didn’t wish to. “Then Prince went like this,” she said, signifying him pushing a button. “And he erased the whole thing. Right there.”
For the charity single ‘We Are The World’, Prince also refused to contribute given that Lionel Richie had co-wrote the song with none other than Michael Jackson.