Have you ever wondered how Michael Jackson became THE KING OF POP? Well, now we know – he came up with the name himself.
In Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks’ fantastic history of the glory days of MTV, they reveal that in 1991 Michael sent a memo to MTV requesting that VJs refer to him as The King of Pop. Being the biggest star in music video’s ever they said yes in order to get the exclusive first rights to show his 11-minute ‘Black and White’ video.
Larry Stessel, an executive at Epic Records during the height of MJ says: “Michael called me one day and said, “I want to have a nickname, like ‘The Boss’ or ‘The King.'” I said, “Well, Bruce Springsteen is ‘The Boss,’ and Elvis Presley is ‘The King.’ You can’t be the King because you’ll never live it down. The press will rip you apart.” But Michael would not let this go. He hired his own personal publicist, Bob Jones. And one day, Bob issued a press release announcing that Michael Jackson was the King of Pop. Michael went rogue on us.”
And the name stuck!
When I worked for DIDDY he kept changing his name, but after a while, no-one cared!