In a recent interview with Howard Stern, Mark Ronson fondly recalls meeting Michael Jackson when he was a kid, growing up in New York. Read a small part of the transcript below.
Credit: The Howard Stern Show, January 29, 2019
HS: Michael Jackson, when you were 12 years old, he would sleep over at the house?
MR: There was once… I grew up two buildings down from Sean Lennon. Sean Lennon is a really great friend of mine. And he was friends with Michael cuz he was in the Smooth Criminal – I think Michael Jackson owned the Beatles catalog. We didn’t think there was anything weird maybe like that we were kids hanging out with Michael Jackson. But we were just like, “Holy shit, we’re hanging out with Michael Jackson!” Michael came into town on the Bad tour and Sean was like Michael’s staying over tonight, you want to stay over… like what are you gonna say?
HS: And no weirdness, right? I mean you see this documentary now. No one fondled you…
MR: There was no weirdness. The thing I really remember is like… I just remember being like, “Sean, this guy is like a kid. Like, he really is.” He really is… he wanted to like throw soggies(?) out the window and we live on the 7th floor I was like this seems dangerous. And then I didn’t tell anyone at school cuz who the fuck is gonna believe you? And it sounded like such a terrible story. I even feel a little embarrassed talking about it now, but it happened.
HS: Wow. And uh what did you make of this whole documentary? You feel like he was just a child-like guy who liked to hang out with kids because he was like a kid.
MR: Which was the documentary?
HS: Oh, there’s a new documentary…
RQ: New one just appeared at Sundance Film Festival.
MR: No, I didn’t see that. The Spike Lee one, Off the Wall, was good. I didn’t see this one.
