{"id":283968,"date":"2025-10-07T12:39:40","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T12:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/283968\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T12:39:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T12:39:40","slug":"lionel-richie-reveals-michael-jacksons-nickname-was-smelly-due-to-bad-hygiene-ratty-jeans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/283968\/","title":{"rendered":"Lionel Richie Reveals Michael Jackson\u2019s Nickname Was \u2018Smelly\u2019 Due to Bad Hygiene, \u2018Ratty Jeans\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Jackson<\/strong> may have been known as the King of Pop,<\/a> but his friends had another name for him, according to Lionel Richie.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the 76-year-old Commodores frontman\u2019s new memoir, Truly, he detailed how Jackson had such bad hygiene that their late friend Quincy Jones<\/strong> nicknamed him \u201cSmelly,\u201d according to People<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael would laugh too, realizing that he was oblivious to the fact that he hadn\u2019t changed or washed his clothes for a couple of days or so,\u201d Richie wrote, per People. \u201cWe all have our quirks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever Michael came to visit me, he was wearing whatever \u2014 jeans and a t-shirt,\u201d Richie shared. \u201cAnd the jeans were either falling off him or too short to even be jeans and, well, smelly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The American Idol judge recalled how, when he asked the \u201cThriller\u201d singer about his bottoms, he told him, \u201c\u2018Lionel, I walked by a store in the Valley. The owner came out and gave me a free pair.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Star Max Photos\/Newscom\/The Mega Agency<\/p>\n

According to People, Richie explained that because of the amount of travel the musician was doing, he couldn\u2019t rely on his clothes getting back to him if he sent them for cleaning.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody kept something for a souvenir,\u201d Richie penned. \u201cHe just got into the habit of wearing the same pants until they were unwearable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cHello\u201d hitmaker further recounted how he once helped Jackson clean himself up, giving him a new pair of jeans and underwear \u2014 and was simultaneously left with the superstar\u2019s old belongings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI drove him home, on his back streets, and he was sweet and thankful,\u201d Richie wrote. \u201cAs soon as I walked back into my house, I passed by the living room and noticed that there on the carpet was the pair of Michael Jackson\u2019s underwear and his old ratty jeans. Just lying there like roadkill. What do I do but laugh? MJ was here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Jackson may have been known as the King of Pop, but his friends had another name for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":283969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,85039,1018,975,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-283968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-lionel-richie","10":"tag-michael-jackson","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115332931244468476","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}