Sheila E. Alleges Prince Re-Recorded A Better Version Of Michael Jackson’s Hit Single ‘Bad’

Sheila E., Michael Jackson, Prince

Sheila E. Alleges Prince Re-Recorded A Better Version Of Michael Jackson’s Hit Single ‘Bad’

Musician Sheila E. is denying claims that Prince was jealous of Michael Jackson.

The singer/drummer recently shot down lingering rumors that Prince envied his music rival, alleging he once recreated one of Michael Jackson’s songs that turned out better than the original.

During a recent interview Sheila E., who has been performing and collaborating with late pop star Prince since the 1980’s, was asked about his alleged tense relationship with Michael Jackson. As you may know, both the “Purple Rain” and the “Billie Jean” singers were at the height of their careers from the mid 80’s to early 90’s, and were often pitted against each other in terms of musical talent comparisons.

Though unconfirmed, reports at the time alleged that Prince was holding some secret negative feeling towards Jackson due to his ascension as the ‘King of Pop’. Rumors that Sheila is now suggesting couldn’t be further from the truth. Attempting to showcase how the music powerhouses rivaled in terms of talent, Sheila recalled the moment she and Prince were given a version of Jackson’s hit single “Bad” from his 1987 album of the same name. She stated:

“So we get the song Bad from Michael…and Prince was like…Michael wants me to sing this song with him. So [Michael] played it for us, he goes ‘your butt is mine’…[Prince] just walked away and he said ‘un un.’ So we went and we re-recorded Bad.”

She continued:

“It was so funky, it was so amazing. It was an incredible rendition of what it should’ve been.”

Sheila went on to claim that while the crew were anxious to have Jackson hear the record, Prince ensured the track would never see the light of day. She added:

“And then after we recorded we were like ‘Oh my God we can’t wait for Michael to hear it’ then Prince went like this [motions pressing a button] and he erased the whole thing right there…We did that all the time though, I can name so many songs that we re-recorded that were sent to us.”

“Bad” went on to spend two weeks #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart following its release, becoming the album’s second number-one single and Jackson’s eighth number one entry on the chart.

Do you think you would have preferred Prince’s version of ‘Bad’? Tell us in the comments below!