Michael Jackson’s pet chimpanzee Bubbles “tore apart” the vocal booth when the music legend was recording his ‘Thriller’ album.
Michael Jackson's pet chimpanzee Bubbles
The iconic musician - who passed away in 2009 - bought Bubbles the chimpanzee from a Texas research facility in the 1980s, and was known for taking the chimp everywhere with him, including on trips abroad and on tour.
And Toto guitarist Steve Lukather - who worked with Michael on the monumental 1982 album ‘Thriller’, and particularly focused on the single ‘Beat It’ - has now revealed Michael had to stop bringing Bubbles to the recording studio because the monkey would constantly cause havoc.
Steve explained: "He stopped bringing him to the studio because he tore apart the vocal booth and threw s*** against the wall at Westlake Audio.
"Man, that monkey just ripped that f******* vocal booth to shreds. I think they banned ol' Bubbles from the studio after that.
"But Michael was cool, man, he was a pro. He'd sing his ass off in the studio. He knew what he wanted and I guess he loved what we did. He kept hiring us.”
The guitarist also said he didn’t see anything “weird” whilst working with Michael, but admitted he found the incident with Bubbles to be “pretty amusing”.
He added during an interview with Ultimate Guitar: "It was just a blast, being in a room with these guys - they were the biggest stars in the world - Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Quincy Jones, George Martin, Jeff Emrick, all of us, it was just a trip.
"That was a 'pinch me' moment. It was like, 'How did I get here?'. But Michael was always really cool to me. I didn't see nothing weird.
"I mean, the whole Bubbles thing - the monkey and the carrying around Webster and stuff like that, I found pretty amusing. I didn't see anything weird-weird, you know?"
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