Jon Bon Jovi recalls partying with Michael Jackson’s chimp Bubbles

“Bubbles comes down and wreaks havoc. Bubbles partied like a rock star.”

Jon Bon Jovi says he once stayed in the same Tokyo hotel as Michael Jackson, which led to a wild night of partying with a fellow ‘80s icon — but not the one you’d think.

In a Jimmy Kimmel Live interview, the Bon Jovi frontman recalled his surprising interaction with the King of Pop during the Slippery When Wet tour in September 1987, when he and guitarist Richie Sambora were invited to Jackson’s quarters. “We walked into his hotel room, which was all done up in mirrors so he could dance,” he explained. “They actually took a wall out between these rooms, because he was there for quite a while. ":

"His manager takes us in, fixes his hair, puts his cigar out, fixes his shirt before he enters the room — it was all very surreal," Bon Jovi continued. "And Michael comes in with the bullet belts across his shirt, and my eyes sort of do that ‘wee-wah’ because, you know, it’s Michael Jackson and you’re in his hotel room!”

After having a conversation with the “Smooth Criminal” singer, Bon Jovi said that he and his bandmates invited Jackson to their own hotel room for an evening of partying. “We think we’re friends, and we say, ‘Come on down to our floor, and hang out, we’ve got the whole band here. Our girlfriends are all here.”

The “Livin’ on a Prayer” singer said Jackson ultimately didn’t join the band that night, but he did send an unusual consolation prize. “Unfortunately he didn’t come, but he sends Bubbles the Chimp as his representative,” Bon Jovi said. “That was big, right? Bubbles comes down and wreaks havoc. Bubbles partied like a rock star.”

Bon Jovi said he doesn’t remember how Bubbles arrived at the scene. “[He was] jumpin’ on the bed, puttin’ on a show, oh yeah,” he said. “And I don’t remember who brought him down or if he just came down on his own with a cigar. Bubbles showed up, man. He hung hard.”

Kimmel asked how long Bubbles stuck with the band at the party. “Seemed like a lifetime,” Bon Jovi responded. “Quite a while, to the point where hotel management came and threatened to throw us out. Oh yeah. We partied with Bubbles.”

Bubbles, who lived with Jackson from the 1980s until the early 2000s, wasn’t as popular with some of the other celebs who met him. Writer David Wigg claimed that the chimp was a major source of conflict that disrupted Jackson’s collaboration with Freddie Mercury.

“Freddie got very angry because Michael made Bubbles sit between them and would turn to the chimp between takes and ask, ‘Don’t you think that was lovely?’ or, ‘Do you think we should do that again?’ After a few days of this, Freddie just exploded,” Wigg wrote, adding that Mercury said, “‘I’m not performing with a f---ing chimp sitting next to me each night’... He phoned his manager and told him to ‘get me out of this zoo.’ Freddie then flew back to London, leaving the track musically unfinished.”

Additionally, Rashida Jones says she has a scar on her hand from when Bubbles attacked her as a child.

Watch the full Jimmy Kimmel Live segment with Bon Jovi above.

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