|
Post by Russg on Aug 12, 2017 5:17:12 GMT
Wesley Snipes Confirms Stealing Prince's Role in Michael Jackson's 'Bad' Video "Me and Prince were auditioning together, and I blew Prince out of the water," Snipes says
Wesley Snipes remembered battling Prince during auditions for a key role in Michael Jackson's 18-minute "Bad" short-film on Conan on Wednesday. Snipes ultimately won the part, landing one of his first major on-screen looks before he exploded as a movie superstar in the Nineties.
"Me and Prince were auditioning together, and I blew Prince out of the water," Snipes declared. "Michael had told Prince that he had the role, and then he met me."
"This is a true story," he reiterated. "Prince was actually considered the lead character in the 'Bad' video, and then Michael met me and kicked Prince to the curb."
In a VH1 interview with Chris Rock in 1997, Prince offered a different reason for not appearing in the "Bad" video: He said he turned down the role because he wasn't comfortable being the object of the single's sensual first line, "Your butt is mine."
The "Bad" clip, directed by Martin Scorsese, is an 18-minute story revolving around inner-city gangs, and Snipes said part of the reason he got the role was that Jackson believed he was actually a gang member in real life. "[Jackson] really thought I was in a gang – he didn't know that I was a trained thespian," the actor recalled. "At the time, the great Michael hadn't spent very much time in the 'hood."
Snipes was visiting Conan to promote his debut novel, Talon of God.
|
|
|
Post by Liberian Girl on Aug 12, 2017 5:38:06 GMT
I really couldn't imagine Prince in Bad. I get the feeling Snipes may be re-writing history a bit here. Prince wasn't intended just to do a cameo in the video, the song was meant to be a duet. A Prince-MJ duet would've been HUGE news in the music world, there is no way MJ would've chosen some random unknown to do a cameo in the short film, at the expense of one of the most hotly anticipated duets of all time.
|
|
|
Post by MattyJam on Aug 12, 2017 5:50:33 GMT
Wesley is a fantasist. Prince and Quincy both gave the same account as to the meeting that took place and why the duet never happened.
Why would Prince be auditioning to be in the video if he'd turned down the duet? I think Snipes has delusions of grandeur if he really believes that he got the role over Prince.
|
|
|
Post by mjjfan810 on Aug 12, 2017 6:14:45 GMT
In what kind of parallel universe would Prince have had to audition for a bit-part in a MJ video? As if he didn't have his own illustrious career at the time. Bad put Wesley Snipes on the map. Prince was busy doing a little album called Sign O The Times, so I'm sure doing a cameo in his arch-rivals music video wasn't exactly at the top of his list of priorities. Although suffice to say, if Prince had wanted that role, it would've been his.
|
|
|
Post by Russg on Aug 12, 2017 12:20:49 GMT
Would've been hilarious though, watching two of the most androgynous men in pop music trying to out-man each other. Maybe Prince could've bitch slapped MJ for stealing the eyeliner?
|
|
|
Post by jaywonder on Aug 12, 2017 15:14:22 GMT
Love Wesley, but his account in no way matches up. I was going to post this on prince.org but decided not to:
Quincy wanted Michael and Prince to do a duet and a video where Michael and Prince have a standoff where Prince arrives to kick Michael’s ass which would’ve lead them having a dance-off and trading verses. By the end of the song (probably with the third verse), they settle their differences, become friends and dance together. Prince, according to Susan Rogers, liked the idea of the duet but was reluctant because of the dynamics (A song written by Michael, on Michael’s album that’s produced by Quincy and Michael, so definitely not balanced)
Michael and his team worked on the song at his home studio under the codename “Pee” and then brought the demo track to the studio. Prince came by, he wasn’t feeling the song as we know but told them they didn’t need him on the track and left. One of Michael’s assistant engineers said when he left, everyone was talking about how cool and nice he was to everyone at the studio. Because Prince turned it down, it put a wrench into the idea for the video. They didn’t have an idea of what to do when they went to Scorsese so he got Richard Price to do the script that was loosely based on the murder of Edmund Perry. Unbeknownst to Perry, Michael and the choreographers added the color (dance sequence) to the video :lol:
So Wesley’s version doesn't really matchup. Prince meeting with Michael at Westlake was in May-June’86 (I think the Sunset Sound meet up with the ping pong game was a few weeks later) and the Bad film wasn’t put together until probably September-October and wasn't shot until that following November in 1986
|
|
|
Post by HIStoric on Aug 13, 2017 2:23:28 GMT
Convienent he only goes on about this once the two figures who can dispute this are dead.
|
|
|
Post by respect77 on Aug 13, 2017 5:21:50 GMT
This sounds like a totally made-up story. LOL.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2017 11:56:32 GMT
That is a funny story. I heard Prince was only asked to duet on the song and he turned it down as the song had lyrics that sounded vaguely homoerotic ("Your Butt is mine - I don't know who he singing that too, but he sho ain't singing it to me!") and Prince had no interest in the song as he knew it would be a titanium hit, with or without his involvement.
I doubt Prince really knew or even cared who Wesley Snipes was in 1987.
|
|