It turns out, fans missed out on some tracks from musical collaborations from music legends Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson.
Forty years after the release of the late Queen frontman’s only solo album, Mr. Bad Guy, the New York Post spoke to Jo Burt, who played the fretless bass for the album. He told them that, in 1983, when Queen was taking a break before Mercury gave his iconic performance at Live Aid 1985, and Jackson was between Thriller and Bad, they had a joint recording session that was left unfinished because of a llama. It was Jackson’s pet, Louie.
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Michael Jackson and Bubbles in 1987
“I think the last straw was when Michael brought his pet llama into the studio,” Burt told the newspaper. “I think Freddie sort of took umbrage to that.”
The songs “Victory,” “State of Shock,” and “There Must Be More to Life Than This” weren’t officially released as duets as planned during their lifetimes.
The Post noted that, in the 2012 documentary Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender, Queen’s manager, Jim “Miami” Beach said the artist reached out to him about the unwanted guest in Jackson’s home studio in Encino, Calif.
“Mercury rang me and said, ‘Miami, dear, can you get over here? You’ve got to get me out of here, I’m recording with a llama,'” Beach recalled.
Jackson, who died June 25, 2009, of acute propofol intoxication, was known for having many exotic pets, including a chimp named Bubbles, an elephant called Ali, and tigers Thriller and Sabu. At least one other celebrity also had a flimsy relationship with one of Jackson’s pets. Brooke Shields explained in 2022 that, while she adored chimps, Bubbles was not a fan of hers. “You know what, Bubbles didn’t really like me. I’m not quite sure why,” she told Yahoo Entertainment. “But I didn’t get to spend, really, almost any time with Bubbles.”
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As for Mercury, he did several more albums with Queen and, of course, made that iconic appearance at Live Aid, before he died of AIDS in 1991.
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