Suzanne de Passe collects elephants. Page Six once called her an “avid collector of everything elephants.” Snakes are another story, and Michael Jackson found that out at her front door.
It was one afternoon, “four or five years” after Michael had left Motown, according to Page Six. He’d come over to her condo to watch videos of himself performing as a kid. De Passe told the story at a live Q&A that Page Six moderated at the Harbor View Hotel on Martha’s Vineyard in 2024, at a reception held for her coming Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction.
“He turns the corner and there, around his neck, was a boa constrictor named Muscles,” she said.
If her name rings a bell, it’s because de Passe is the reason the Jackson 5 ever got to Motown. She told the crowd it took her two weeks just to get Berry Gordy to see the boys. His first answer, as she remembered it, was “Kids? I don’t want any kid acts. Do you know how much trouble Stevie Wonder is?”
She kept at him. “My claim to fame is I was relentless. I did not take no for an answer,” she said. When Gordy finally saw them, “He went out of his mind and said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me how great they were?'”
Once the brothers were signed, she told Page Six, her job included “buying them a house, rehearsing them, dressing them.” In October 2024, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame gave her the Ahmet Ertegun Award. Laura Harrier played her in this year’s “Michael” movie.
So she’d known Michael since he was a boy. That didn’t get Muscles through the door.
“Michael Jackson, are you out of your mind? You’re not bringing that thing in my house,” she told him.
Michael promised her the snake was “OK.” She wasn’t having it. “No, he’s not OK!” she said. “Michael, I’m not kidding. We’ll reschedule. Go away!”
Page Six’s Carlos Greer, who moderated the event, retells it on camera in the clip below. De Passe herself isn’t on screen in this one, so you’re hearing the story the way she told it to him.
Page Six’s Carlos Greer retells Suzanne de Passe’s boa constrictor story
This is Page Six’s own upload. Greer gets to Michael showing up with Muscles at about 0:49, and at about 1:21 he explains how the two of them settled it.
Michael didn’t go away. Muscles didn’t stay out on the step, either. They worked out a deal.
Michael asked if he could put Muscles in one of her pillowcases. She said yes, and it wasn’t a cheap one.
“I probably gave [Jackson] a Pratesi pillowcase … and he takes Muscles and he’s stuffing him down in my pillowcase … then he ties off the top!” she said.
Page Six reported that Muscles camped out on the couch, tied up inside the pillowcase, while Michael got what he’d come for. Greer says Michael used to like watching videos of himself performing as a child, and that’s why he’d turned up that day.
De Passe didn’t get to enjoy the show much. Michael “goes to my den to watch himself on video, and I watch the pillowcase,” she said.
When it was time to leave, Michael asked her a polite question about her linen. Her answer was quick.
“‘Do you want the case?’ I said, ‘No! In fact, take the fitting sheet and the top sheet. You can have it all! Just go!'” she said.
As far as de Passe was concerned, that Pratesi pillowcase belonged to Muscles now.