Quincy Jones once tried to arrange a collaboration between Prince and Michael Jackson (who Jones liked to call “Smelly”) for Jackson’s Bad album. Jones remembers a meeting gone awry at Jackson’s place in Hayvenhurst. It was definitely not at Prince’s house near Minneapolis, which MJ pronounced “Minnenapolis,” to Prince’s extreme chagrin. Prince brought Michael a strange gift box filled with things like that addressed to “Camille,” which was Prince’s pet name for Michael.
“Michael was scared to death—he thought there was some voodoo in there,” Jones said. “I wanted to take it, because I knew Michael was gonna throw it away.” He did, in fact, end up throwing it away.
At the same gathering, Jones also said that Prince told Janet Jackson to “relax your lips, girl.” Another source of contention in the two icons’ relationship was a joint performance with James Brown in 1983 in L.A., during which Prince embarrassed himself by “nearly tumbl[ing] into the audience trying to pull down an oversize streetlamp prop” while shirtless.