Ciara was riding through Atlanta with Three 6 Mafia pumping, and it was no accident. Michael Jackson was about to call her, and loud Memphis rap was how she planned to steady herself.
She told the story on camera to Extra in March 2018, at a launch event for the jewelry line Pandora Shine. By then the singer of “Goodies” and “1, 2 Step” had been famous for more than a decade. One name still got to her.
“The only person I think that would have really made me starstruck is probably Michael,” she said. The two of them only ever spoke by phone. It was one call, and she can still walk you through all of it.
Ciara tells Extra about the day Michael Jackson called her
This is Extra’s own upload of the interview. The first part covers the jewelry launch and her children. The Michael story starts at about 1:28 and runs to about 2:59.
The nerves arrived well before the phone rang. Ciara knew the call was coming, which gave her plenty of time to get worked up about it. “I was trying to keep it real cool and calm before he called me,” she said. Her method was volume. “I was actually pumping Three 6 Mafia to try to keep myself calm and cool.”
Then the plan fell apart. “And then I missed the first phone call,” she said. A woman who handled Michael’s calls had left her a message. Ciara’s reaction, as she tells it at about 2:13, was one panicked thought: “Did I just miss the call from Michael Jackson?” The music went off straight away. “I made sure the radio was down,” she said.
She got in touch with the woman and owned up. “I called back and let her know that I missed a call and then I got the call again,” she told Extra.
So what did Michael say once he finally had her on the line?
He didn’t start with music. He asked about the weather. “He was just asking me like what the weather was like in Atlanta,” Ciara said at about 2:28. It was small talk of the plainest kind, coming from the most famous entertainer on the planet, and it floored her. Her answer wasn’t the cool, calm one she’d been working on all that time. “I’m like, I don’t know, the weather’s sunny,” she said. “I couldn’t even think straight.”
The reason for the call came after that. “He was asking me to be a part of the song that he was doing at the time with many other artists,” she said at about 2:36. She doesn’t name the song in the interview.
What she does say is how much the call meant to her. “He honestly is probably my biggest inspiration as an artist and so that was very special,” she told Extra, “and at least I have that cool moment in memory.”
There’s a second fan in the family now, too. Shortly before the phone story, at about 1:20, the talk turns to her son Future, who “is obsessed with Michael Jackson.”
As for the question that started it all, her answer still stands. The forecast for Atlanta that day, according to a very nervous Ciara: sunny.