*Lionel Richie opens up about his longtime friendship with Michael Jackson in his new memoir, “Truly,” sharing intimate details about the superstar’s quirks — including his hygiene.
As PEOPLE reports, Richie, 76, recalls that producer Quincy Jones gave Jackson the playful nickname “Smelly” during their years of collaboration. “Michael was very close with his siblings and his mom, but once he went solo, making these monster albums, movies and videos, he was in charge of his own ship,” Richie writes. “His day-to-day life was what you could call eccentric. Like an absent-minded professor but still a kid.”
Richie explains that Jackson’s packed schedule and extreme fame often left him in the same outfits for days at a time. “Michael would laugh too, realizing that he was oblivious to the fact that he hadn’t changed or washed his clothes for a couple of days or so,” Richie writes. “We all have our quirks.”
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He describes Jackson as someone who dressed for the moment, whether it was stage costumes, pajama bottoms in the studio, or loose clothing at home while practicing dance moves and playing with his pets. But when Jackson visited Richie, his attire was often much more casual.
“Whenever Michael came to visit me, he was wearing whatever — jeans and a t-shirt. And the jeans were either falling off him or too short to even be jeans and, well, smelly,” Richie recalls.
Jackson also admitted to picking up clothes in unconventional ways. Richie remembers asking about a pair of pants, to which Jackson replied, “‘Lionel, I walked by a store in the Valley. The owner came out and gave me a free pair.’”
Even laundry wasn’t simple for the global star. “Everybody kept something for a souvenir,” Richie writes, noting that on tour Jackson often lost clothes that were sent out for cleaning. “He just got into the habit of wearing the same pants until they were unwearable.”
“Truly” by Lionel Richie is available now wherever books are sold.
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