When Jovi met Jacko

25th June 2014
When Bon Jovi met Michael Jackson: ‘He couldn’t have been nicer’

Today marks the five-year anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death and media outlets around the world are recalling the legacy the pop star left behind.

The Hollywood Reporter has published an excerpt from author Zach O’Malley’s new book Michael Jackson, Inc.: The Rise, Fall, and... which contains a story chronicling Bon Jovi’s first encounter with the King of Pop.

In 1987 the Jersey band was at the highest point of their career and happen to be in Tokyo at the same time Jackson was performing a sold-out three-night stint at the 135,000-capacity Korakuem Stadium. Just their luck, they were also shacking up at the same hotel. BJ’s manager Frank Dileo arranged a meet-up between the two musical forces and it was just as weird as you could imagine:

The hotel was shaped like a hand, with the palm containing an elevator bank. The fingers radiated outward, each its own wing with multiple rooms; on the top floor, one wing was blocked off for Jackson and his inner circle.

Dileo led Bon Jovi and his bandmates down a long corridor to the singer’s suite, pausing to slick back his hair and extinguish his cigar before opening the door.

“The room had been ripped to shreds and redecorated,” says Bon Jovi.
“They put up mirrors against the wall so [Jackson] could practice his dancing, and a wooden dance floor in there. And they took over a wing of this hotel. Needless to say, spending money was not really an issue.”
Jackson then entered the room in his signature all black garb from his Bad Tour and the rockers tried to impress him with stories of fame:

The Jersey rockers, fresh from a string of tour dates in Australia — and new to the trappings of superstardom — immediately began regaling Jackson with tales from their trip. They were so big Down Under, they told him, that they had to buy wigs and fake mustaches to avoid paparazzi; the only way out of their hotel was in the laundry van. Jackson smiled and nodded, never giving away the fact that he’d been doing the same since his Jackson 5 days.

“So we made small talk and he couldn’t have been nicer,” Bon Jovi says.
Bon Jovi invited Jackson to hang out in their hotel room but Jackson never showed. Instead, he sent them some entertainment to take his place for the evening: Bubbles the chimpanzee.

“We proceeded to get very drunk, have a bunch of water fights, knock on doors, typical classic rock star things to do in the eighties,” Bon Jovi recalls. “And [we] blamed it all on Bubbles.”

“We were having a blast two floors below with Bubbles, and he was up there practicing his dancing,” says Bon Jovi. “While we were being goofballs and enjoying our success, he was practicing even after the shows because he was just so ultra-über-focused on being Michael Jackson. The blessing was the curse.”

Source: Philly Local News

Read this earlier, quite a good read.

My girlfriend is a big MJ fan like yourself and said she liked the way Jon portrayed MJ in this.

Ask if she has any bootleg collections

Rebirth? More like a stillbirth.

My sister's a pharmacist, and she told me drug he was taking to get to sleep every night was actually a general anesthetic that could only be administered by a licensed anesthesiologist, not the cardiologist he was paying $150K a month. Meanwhile, he was rehearsing for a world tour. What in the world did he fear dreaming about so much that he needed a general anesthetic to get to sleep EVERY night???

P.S. I wish he'd told the truth about his vitiligo right away. That would have cut down on the "he changed his race" jokes enormously.

P.P.S. As for his billion-dollar empire, he's allegedly a little behind on his estate taxes...

According to documents filed with the United States Tax Court in Washington DC, Jackson's executors placed his net worth at the time of his June 2009 death at slightly more than $7 million. The (U.S. Internal Revenue Service) placed it at $1.125 billion, a difference so vast it looks like a typo...

Completely true. I had a procedure done last year and when the anesethiologist started to put me to sleep, she said it was the MJ drug.

The name of the anesthetic is Propofol, not to be confused with Demerol, the next-door-to-morphine pain killer that Michael did a song about.

And when I had a surgical procedure, I don't even remember being put to sleep: One minute I was watching a needle going into the back of my hand -- and the next thing I knew, I was in the recovery room, LOL!

This article is a bit off. Frank Dileo was MJ's manager and not Bon Jovi's manager.
Bon Jovi were managed by Doc McGhee at the time.
I don't know, something about this story reads a bit like fiction.

It's not fiction as it has appeared in Bon Jovi books as well. It may even be found in an old magazine interview somewhere.

"I'm pumping you full of the shit that killed Michael Jackson". Lol. Nice bed side manner.

LOL!!! But what the anesthesiologist should have said was:

"I am giving you the anesthetic that killed Michael Jackson. But it's not going to kill YOU, because I'm trained and licensed to use it, I have the mandatory monitoring equipment, and either myself or another qualified anesthesiologist will always be with you as required.

"Therefore, you do NOT have to worry about my finding you dead because I had no monitoring equipment; calling my office and telling my secretary to destroy your records; asking a child to witness me giving CPR to your corpse; calling 911 two hours later, or refusing to sign your death certificate!"