Usher had come to Madison Square Garden in September 2001 to watch the show. Then one of Michael Jackson’s people walked over with news he never saw coming. Michael’s manager told him, “You’re going to dance with Michael tonight.”
His first thought was about his feet. “I ain’t got my Air Force Ones and I’m in boots,” he told Shannon Sharpe on “Club Shay Shay.”
On paper he had nothing to be nervous about. Usher was 22, and that July his single “U Remind Me” had gone to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Michael was in New York to celebrate 30 years as a solo artist, with two nights at the Garden and a guest list that ran from Whitney Houston to Britney Spears. CBS aired the special that November, and about 45 million people watched all or part of it.
None of that helped once Usher got close to Michael. The two had never met. “The first time I got a chance to meet Michael was onstage at Madison Square Garden,” Usher told TIME magazine in 2009. “There were tons of people on the stage, and I just remember losing my mind. Like, Oh my God, that’s Michael Jackson right there. I was just over his right shoulder.”
Then came “You Rock My World,” Michael’s new single that year. Usher and comedian Chris Tucker came out to join him, and the three of them traded moves in front of the whole Garden. It was the moment Usher had waited for. “When I finally got a chance to get on the stage with him, I was just shut down,” he said. “He had the type of magic that you just bowed to.”
Usher and Chris Tucker join Michael for “You Rock My World” in 2001
This is a fan’s remastered copy of the 2001 TV broadcast, not an official upload. Michael performs “You Rock My World” at the Garden, and Usher and Chris Tucker come out to dance with him.
When Usher found his voice, he didn’t play it cool. “I love you, and I know you’ve heard it a million and one times from fans all over the world, but you’ve meant so much to me as an entertainer, and I love you, and I’ve admired you all these years,” he told Michael.
Michael said “Thank you” in what Usher called “a very calm, meek voice.” Then he turned the moment around. “Thank you so much, Usher. What you do is great; you’re great,” Michael told him. “What you do is not easy, the singing and dancing is not easy. Most performers can’t do that, and you’ve been able to do it, and I’m very impressed by you.”
The man Usher had admired all those years was telling him he was the one doing something rare.
On “Club Shay Shay” Usher put Michael’s point in his own words: the rare thing is that “you dance and sing,” and “that combination is vicious.”
Usher tells Shannon Sharpe about dancing with Michael in boots
Usher starts the story at about 0:14, with Michael’s manager walking over and the boots. He talks about rehearsals going all out at 1:04, and the compliment comes at 1:29.
In 2024, days before he headlined the Super Bowl halftime show, Usher went back to that night with The Hollywood Reporter. Michael “didn’t really say a lot,” he said. “It was an admiration of what I do as an entertainer that he offered me.” Michael, he added, “appreciated the fact that I’m a song-and-dance man and the fact that that’s not an easy thing to do.”