13. The Beatles’ Back Catalogue
After Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson wrote and recorded some music together, Jackson was surprised to find out that McCartney earned roughly $40 million each year due to the music publishing rights he owned. Turns out that revealing this information was one of the Beatle man’s biggest mistakes, as in 1984, the two of them entered a bidding dispute to acquire the rights to the Northern Songs catalog, which featured almost every Lennon–McCartney Beatles composition ever written. Paul was looking to spend around £10 million, with Yoko Ono (Lennon’s widow) also placing her own £10 million towards the prize. Ono, however, thought this was too expensive, and tried to argue the price down to £5 million each. Meanwhile, Jackson reached into his back pocket, pulled out around $47.5 million, and paid the suits right then and there, now the proud owner of everything The Beatles had ever recorded. When McCartney protested to his former friend, Jackson replied that it was “just business”.
12. A Michael Jackson Statue Wearing The Batsuit
During a secret brainstorming meeting held to discuss the soundtrack for Tim Burton’s 1989 superhero flick Batman, it was suggested that Prince could perform certain funk tracks for the film, whilst Jackson could handle the more soppy love ballad ones. Prince scoffed at this idea and every other idea, demanding that he write an entirely new studio album for the movie, which the people in charge said was “ok”. Regardless, Jackson has often called himself a huge fan of the franchise, requesting to play the role of Riddler in 1995’s Batman Forever (a part which thankfully went to Jim Carrey instead) as well as purchasing this life-sized statue of himself dressed as Batman. Perhaps as some sweet nod to all of this, The LEGO Batman Movie starts with the inspirational Jackson lyric: “If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.” Solid advice.
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