Michael Jackson once hosted a private screening to watch Prince bloopers

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Thanks to record producer L.A. Reid’s new memoir Sing To Me, we have a great little behind the scenes Michael Jackson story. Along with Reid’s tour of Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson wanted to show them footage of Prince looking like an idiot. From NY Post:

Finally, he brought them to a screening room and showed them footage of a 1983 James Brown concert where Jackson, called on stage as a guest, “danced a few steps,” then told Brown that Prince, Jackson’s longtime rival, was in the crowd as well. Brown called him up too, but to Jackson’s delight, his appearance didn’t go nearly as well.

“Prince [couldn’t] make his guitar work, frantically stripping off his shirt and trying tricks with the microphone stand and making all these poses. After Michael’s dazzling star turn, Prince fell as flat as he could, and Michael enjoyed laughing at the video.”

But Michael wasn’t done humiliating him.

“After that, he put on a scene from Prince’s movie ‘Under The Cherry Moon,’ the artsy black-and-white bomb he made after ‘Purple Rain,’ and he laughed some more at Prince.”

At in the below clip you can see Michael Jackson whispering to James Brown that Prince was in the building. Prince attempts to play guitar and “sing” but ends up pulling down a prop light post and hilariously falling into the crowd. If I owned a home movie theater I think this is what I would show to my guests as well:

See the full concert at Nights of Record

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