Legendary music producer Quincy Jones knows how to make a hit record just as well as he knows how to get the public’s attention with his off-the-wall anecdotes. Jones rarely does interviews now that he is 88 years old, but when he does it’s safe to say readers should expect a wild ride down Jones’ memory lane.
In his latest interview with the “The Hollywood Reporter,” he claimed that rock and roll icon Elvis Presley was racist. “I wouldn’t work with him,” he said. “He was a racist mother — I’m going to shut up now,” he added as he cut himself off from saying too much yet again.
Three years ago the famous producer, who helped Michael Jackson with some of his biggest albums, such as “Thriller” and “Off the Wall,” had plenty of people questioning his state of mind given all the hard-to-believe tales he shared in interviews with GQ and New York magazine.
His daughters swiftly pulled his coat when he turned heads and made headlines with outlandish claims and revelations during interviews.
“My daughters [actress Rashida Jones, designer Kidada Jones, Kenya, Jolie, Rachel and Martina] set an intervention with me,” Jones told THR in the new interview. “They kicked my butt. And they know how to.”
In his GQ tell-all Jones claimed to have a harem of girlfriends. “I got 22 girlfriends,” he claimed. “Hell yeah. Everywhere. Cape Town. Cairo. Stockholm—she’s coming in next week. Brazil—Belo Horizonte, São Paulo, and Rio. Shanghai—got a great girl over there from Shanghai, man. Cairo, whew.”
Some of the most intriguing allegations made by the music icon during the New York magazine interview included:
“I hate to get into this publicly, but Michael stole a lot of stuff. He stole a lot of songs. [Donna Summer] ‘State of Independence’ and ‘Billie Jean.’ The notes don’t lie, man. He was as Machiavellian as they come.”
As well as his jaw-dropping claims about the late actor Marlon Brando’s private life: “He was the most charming m———-r you ever met. He’d f–k anything. Anything! He’d f–k a mailbox. James Baldwin. Richard Pryor. Marvin Gaye.”
Jones later issued a statement addressing his entertaining-but-confusing case of “wordvomit.”
