somewhereinthedark;4287528 said:
1. Michael didn’t create Moonwalker to compete with Purple Rain. Moonwalker was a promotional piece for the album, Bad. Had nothing to do with Purple Rain. Michael poked a little good natured fun at Prince in the film only because Prince had said some devious things about him in the past.
2. I KNOW Michael had no idea he would sell out as many O2 arenas as he did. He had not toured in years, he was not promoting a new album, he had been inundated with negative press. The difference is Prince was promoting new album, giving away free albums with each purchased ticket, and no negative press.Even the promoters had no idea Michael would sell out even 10 shows. It was his sheer star power and the respect and love for Michael that caused him to sell out 50 shows in ONE CITY with no album or promotion. This is unheard of and no one else in history had ever done it before or since. It had nothing to do with outdoing Prince. The only people I have ever heard say that was the promoters after Michael’s murder. This RUMOR is being spread as if it were fact and Prince fans use it as another tool in their fanatical jealousy and hate of Michael.
2. The comparisons were 99.9% fueled by the media. It was the media who compared Michael with every artist, even his own sister, just to tear him down.
3. I agree that it doesn’t make sense to compare artists with each other, male or female. I think that it is childish and ignorant.
Themidwestcowboy;4287531 said:
Man enough already, this is a blatant lie. MJ had been looking at that property ever since 1983 when he first encountered the ranch during the filming of "Say Say Say". MJ had already turned the Encino house into a mini neverland way before that. Also prince wasn't the first artist to have a reclusive residency, first that comes to mind is Elvis Pressley with Graceland.
I dislike when people try to rewrite history, especially die hard prince fans. They say he wanted to do movies because prince did purple rain forgetting that he did the variety shows and Wiz and Thriller which was a short film etc. The reason michael wanted to do moonwalker was because he LOVED films and wanted to be an actor.
somewhereinthedark;4287592 said:
Thank you, Thank YOU, THANK YOU!! I too am sick of the LIES and people, especially Prince fans trying to rewrite history to fit THEIR agenda and narrative. Thank you for having the intelligence to speak up about this BS. I applaud every single word that you posted.Btw, this is the very reason for this so-called “competition”- fans, mostly Prince fans perpetuate this childish crap and then the media catches on to it and exploits it. Give it a rest! It’s pathetic!
No one is trying to rewrite history about that.
Michael Jackson knew that he did not manage to achieve success in the film industry with his first steps into films (‘The Wiz’, for example, that came out in 1978, was a big commercial flop).
When Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ film came out and met with huge commercial success in 1984, Michael Jackson felt jealousy towards Prince, and he wanted to create something similar with a similar huge commercial success (note here that Michael Jackson had already attended also a screening of the ‘Purple Rain’ film held by Warner Bros. for a special, small audience, before its public release, which also shows his competitive attitude towards Prince).
When the ‘Purple Rain’ film came out, Michael Jackson became at the time so obsessed with Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ film that he started to read avidly all the press/news articles about that film and even to collect those articles for himself (there are also available photos that confirm that).
‘Moonwalker’ (1988) was a musical film based on a studio album (‘BAD’
just like the ‘Purple Rain’ film (1984) which was based on the ‘Purple Rain’ album.
It is not also a coincidence that he bought and created Neverland Ranch just one or two years after Prince created his Paisley Park.
Michael Jackson did these things also because he wanted people to compare him with Prince because that would help him to stay relevant (it was then when he along with Frank Dileo started to plant also stories on press about a rivalry between these two artists).
Also, Michael Jackson along with AEG Live both knew since March (2009) that he was about to perform at least 25 ‘This Is It’ shows, and part of the reason for that number was to outdo Prince’s 21 shows at that venue two years earlier.
Michael Jackson in his final period was still feeling so competitive towards Prince that he desperately wanted his ‘This Is It’ shows to be better than Prince’s shows:
“
…But Kenny, God channels this through me at night. I can’t sleep because I’m so super-charged… if I’m not there to receive these [creative] ideas, God might give them to Prince…’” (Michael Jackson, 2009)
Michael Jackson was a highly insecure and competitive artist.