Michael Jackson Used to Anger Russell Crowe with Prank Phone Calls

Russell Crowe was recently profiled by The Guardian and while I recommend avoiding the article in general (unless you want to read the journalistic equivalent of making out with a Tiger Beat poster of your favorite celebrity while alone in your teen bedroom, only—TWIST—you’re a writer who uses phrases like “gruff antipodean charm” and the celebrity is RUSSELL CROWE ), it’s worth highlighting one particular excerpt about the several years in which Crowe would get prank calls from Michael Jackson:

The zenith of Crowe’s fame does sound a bit disturbing in other ways. For one thing, he found himself on the receiving end of repeated nuisance calls from, of all people, Michael Jackson. “For two or three fucking years,” he says. “I never met him, never shook his hand, but he found out the name I stayed in hotels under, so it didn’t matter where I was, he’d ring up do this kind of thing, like you did when you were 10, you know. ‘Is Mr Wall there? Is Mrs Wall there? Are there any Walls there? Then what’s holding the roof up? Ha ha.’ You’re supposed to grow out of doing that, right?”

One, I love the idea of Michael Jackson trolling Russell Crowe for no apparent reason and two, I love even more that he was terrible at prank calling. (“Excuse me, Mr. Crow? Is your refrigerator running? Better go catch it! Tee hee hee!”) While most people would probably take this in stride or be surprised at the novelty of it, Crowe—naturally—became angered. You know, maybe this is why he threw that phone at a hotel concierge…