Music maestro Mark Ronson has peeled back the curtain on a painfully awkward teenage encounter with the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson, that will leave you simultaneously cringing and chuckling.
The multiple Grammy-winning producer, now 48, recounted the toe-curling tale during a recent appearance on the popular Mythical Kitchen YouTube series. The scene was set in the mid-90s at New York's legendary Hit Factory recording studio, where a young Ronson found himself face-to-face with his idol.
The Ill-Fated Gift
Armed with a well-meaning but disastrously chosen present, the teenage Ronson attempted to bond with the global superstar. His gift of choice? A bootleg VHS tape of the classic blaxploitation film, Dolemite.
"I go, 'Michael, I got you this tape.' And he's like, 'Oh, thank you,'" Ronson recalled, detailing the moment the gesture backfired spectacularly. Jackson's polite but firm response was a lesson in grace under pressure: "He's like, 'You know, I don't really watch... I can't watch bootleg tapes because the quality's not as good as the original.'"
A Humbling Retreat
The conversation, already on shaky ground, took a final nosedive when Jackson inquired about Ronson's own career aspirations. "He asked me what I did, and I was like, 'I'm a DJ.' And he was like, 'Oh, that's great.'"
With the air thick with second-hand embarrassment, Ronson beat a hasty retreat, leaving the bootleg tape behind as a monument to the failed interaction. He finished the story with a self-deprecating sigh: "And then I just walked away slowly."
This cringe-worthy moment stands in stark contrast to Ronson's later, highly successful collaborations with a who's who of music royalty, from Amy Winehouse to Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. It seems even the most celebrated producers have to start somewhere—even if that somewhere involves a rejected VHS tape from the King of Pop.
