Elephants are her jam. Snakes are not.
Michael Jackson found that out when he and his pet snake paid a visit to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Suzanne de Passe’s home to watch videos of his childhood performances.
De Passe, an “avid collector of everything elephants,” told us that Jackson popped up at her condo one afternoon years ago and, “He turns the corner and there, around his neck, was a boa constrictor named Muscles,” she explained during a live Q&A Page Six moderated at the Harbor View Hotel on Martha’s Vineyard, in celebration of her upcoming Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction.
A terrified de Passe asked the star at the time, “Michael Jackson, are you out of your mind? You’re not bringing that thing in my house.”
Jackson assured her Muscles was “OK,” she recalled.
“No, he’s not OK!” de Passe responded back then. “[Michael’s] coming down, and I said, ‘Michael, I’m not kidding. We’ll reschedule. Go away!’”
The two found a compromise.
At Jackson’s request, Muscles camped out on the couch in one of de Passe’s expensive pillowcases. “I probably gave [Jackson] a Pratesi pillowcase… and he takes Muscles and he’s stuffing him down in my pillow case… then he ties off the top!” she said.
Jackson then “goes to my den to watch himself on video, and I watch the pillow case,” de Passe recalled.
And when it was time to leave, Jackson asked, “‘Do you want the case?’ I said, ‘No! In fact, take the fitting sheet and the top sheet. You can have it all! Just go!” she quipped.
Harbor View proprietor Bernard Chiu co-hosted with reception local author, James Hester.
He rolled out the red carpet for de Passe, and even surprised her with a “Great Elephant Migration” public art installation by the Coexistence Collective that was displayed on the property when she arrived.
Inside, locals and some of de Passe’s closest friends and family gathered for a live interview, where she shared stories about her time at Motown.
The Muscles’ incident was “four or five years” after Jackson had left Motown.
De Passe recalled she had to convince the label’s famed founder, Berry Gordy, to sign the late King of Pop and his brothers’ band, the Jackson Five.
It took her two weeks to persuade Gordy to even see the band, after his initial response was, “‘Kids? I don’t want any kid acts. Do you know how much trouble Stevie Wonder is?’” she recalled him saying.
(Wonder was 11-years-old when the label signed him.)
She added of Jackson’s childhood: “He was a kid. He liked cartoons. He liked to draw. It wasn’t like when people say, ‘He had no childhood.’ He had a different kind of childhood, but a childhood nonetheless.”
Signing the Jackson Five is one of many memories from the Motown vault that has earned de Passe, 78, a spot in the Rock Hall’s class of 2024.
“My claim to fame is I was relentless. I did not take no for an answer… And when he finally did see them… He went out of his mind and said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me how great they were?’ So, we signed them… the rest is history,” she said.
The entertainment executive also dished on hosting Diana Ross in Martha’s Vineyard back in the day.
One of her proudest moments was executive producing Motown’s 25th anniversary special in 1982, which featured memorable performances by Marvin Gaye, Ross and Jackson, who debuted his moonwalk on stage that evening.
Meanwhile, Ross shocked production when she unexpectedly joined Adam Ant on stage, as he performed “Where Did Our Love Go” by the Supremes.
“That night was unbelievable… If you look at the show, you can see this astonishing look on [Ant’s] face,” de Passe remembered.
The show earned her an Emmy for Outstanding Variety Series.
De Passe’s legacy at Motown included signing acts like Rick James, Teena Marie, DeBarge and the Commodores, Lionel Richie’s group, who were on the chopping block back then, she said.
“The suits wanted to drop the Commodores because we spent a lot of money and we had no hits… [Gordy] told them that, ‘[Motown] wasn’t a dollar and cents operation. If someone didn’t have a hit that we had signed, it’s our fault not theirs,’” she said.
The band then had a hit with their debut album, “Machine Gun.”
She eventually exited the company in 1992 to launch her own entertainment outfit, where she produces film and TV projects. And while she still dabbles with some Motown projects, she has surprisingly, and quite literally, tuned out tunes.
“I don’t listen to music much anymore. I listen to books because I’m sort of music’d out, and I definitely don’t listen to Motown music much,” she said.
But nurturing and creating stars like Jackson and Richie remains one of her greatest accomplishments.
On Oct. 19 the exec gets her own due when she’ll receive the Ahmet Ertegun award from the RHOF.
“[Never] In my wildest, wildest, wildest dreams, did I ever think I would be inducted… it never occurred to me… I burst into tears [when I got the call] because I couldn’t believe it,” she concluded.
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