Little Richard didn’t get straight in. When he arrived at Michael Jackson’s home, he was told to wait, and so he waited. Then Michael came out to meet him, wearing what Little Richard described as “a little red shirt.”
He told the story on television in 1987, as a guest of Arsenio Hall on Fox’s The Late Show. Arsenio had heard about the visit from someone else and wanted the details. “Somebody told me you went to Michael Jackson’s house recently,” he said, and Little Richard was off.
Think about who was doing the visiting. This was the man behind “Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally,” one of the founding voices of rock and roll, a performer who’d been tearing up stages since the 1950s. Michael was the man behind “Thriller,” the best-selling album of all time. Yet in Little Richard’s telling, it was Michael who did the honoring.
“As I walked in the door, I walked in, and when I walked in, they made me wait,” he told Arsenio. After the wait, Michael appeared and welcomed him to the house. Then came the greeting. Michael, he said, told him: “I’m so glad to have the originator and the emancipator at my home.” Little Richard’s reply was short. “I said thank you,” he recalled, “and then he said we’re going to have lunch.”
The timing of the interview is part of the story too. In 1987 Arsenio was filling in on The Late Show after Fox let Joan Rivers go that May, and he ended up hosting the program for 13 weeks. Those weeks gave him his first real run as a late-night host, and Little Richard’s visit to Michael’s house was one of the stories that came out of that run.
So what does the King of Pop serve a rock and roll pioneer?
Little Richard answered it himself. “We had lunch,” he said. “Peanut butter and jelly.” Then he turned the question around. “I like peanut butter and jelly, don’t you?” he asked, and added that it came “with cold milk.” Michael went another way. “He had cheese,” Little Richard said.
There was no chef’s menu and no banquet in his account. Peanut butter and jelly with cold milk for the guest, cheese for the host and two music legends sharing a meal in Michael’s home.
Little Richard tells Arsenio Hall about his lunch at Michael Jackson’s house (fan upload of the 1987 broadcast)
This clip was uploaded to YouTube by a Little Richard fan channel, not by Fox or the show, and it runs just 1:41. Arsenio’s question opens the clip, Michael’s greeting comes at about 0:46 and the lunch menu arrives at about 1:09. The upload’s captions are auto-generated and trip over a word or two, so listen to him rather than reading along.
The whole story fits inside that minute and 41 seconds, but the visit itself was no quick handshake. “We had a good time,” Little Richard said. “I stayed there for two hours.”
Before Arsenio could move on, Little Richard made sure the last word went to his host. “Michael, he’s the greatest,” he said. “He’s the greatest.”