Back in 2001, Michael Jackson was handed one of the biggest honors in all of music. He was going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a museum and institution in Cleveland, Ohio that honors the greatest names in rock and pop. Getting inducted means your name sits next to Elvis, the Beatles and the other legends who shaped the sound of a whole century. For most artists it happens once, if it happens at all.
For Michael, this was the second time.
He’d already gone in back in 1997, with his brothers, as the Jackson 5. This night was different. On Monday, March 19, 2001, at the grand old Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York, he was going in on his own, as a solo star. The rock band Aerosmith and the singer Paul Simon were honored the same evening.
Then came the first surprise. The people picked to walk Michael in were about the last names rock fans expected.
The job went to ‘N Sync, the boy band that was packing arenas all over the world right then, with a young Justin Timberlake out front. Timberlake had grown up worshipping Michael. You can watch the whole introduction in the official clip from the Hall of Fame itself.
Justin Timberlake and ‘N Sync welcome Michael into the Hall
Timberlake kicked it off by stringing together lines from Michael’s own songs. “He’s bad, he’s dangerous and if you think we’re going to let him stop because we’ve had enough…” he told the crowd, as Rolling Stone wrote it up that year. One member of the group, Joey Fatone, couldn’t even make it. He’d gotten held up down in Florida.
Then Michael came out. And he had something to tell the room.
He made his way to the microphone slowly, leaning on a cane, with a cast on one foot. Everyone was waiting for the King of Pop. What they got first was an apology.
“There won’t be any moonwalking tonight,” he said. “Because I broke my foot dancing. I fell down the stairs in California.” That’s how Rolling Stone quoted him.
So the one move the whole world wanted to see, the moonwalk, was off the table for the night. He made a joke of it anyway, and the crowd loved him right back.
He went on to thank the people who’d helped him get there. His family. Diana Ross, the Motown star who helped introduce the Jackson 5 to America. Berry Gordy, the man who built Motown Records. And Tommy Mottola, the record boss he worked with at the time.
If you want to hear the moonwalk line for yourself, this is the part to watch. This fan-archived footage from that night catches Michael’s walk-out and his short, funny speech.
Michael at the microphone that night, cane and all
His name is still listed among the honorees on the Hall of Fame’s own inductee page. For a man famous for moving like no one else alive, standing still at that microphone and getting a laugh out of it was its own kind of showstopper.