Bunch of party animals!
Jon Bon Jovi recalled the wild night with Michael Jackson and his celeb pet chimpanzee Bubbles during a trip to Japan in the ’80s.
Appearing on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Thursday, the Bon Jovi frontman, 62, said he and guitarist Richie Sambora were invited to party with the “Smooth Criminal” hitmaker while he was in Tokyo for the “Slippery When Wet” tour.
“We walked into his hotel room, which was all done up in mirrors so he could dance,” the rocker 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,” he went on.
“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 chatting with the King of Pop, Bon Jovi said he and his bandmates were invited to Jackson’s hotel room for a night 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,” he recalled.
The “Livin’ on a Prayer” hitmaker said that while Jackson couldn’t join the band onstage that evening, he did make up for it with an unusual gift.
“Unfortunately he didn’t come, but he sends Bubbles the Chimp as his representative,” he shared. “That was big, right? Bubbles comes down and wreaks havoc. Bubbles partied like a rock star.”
“[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.”
When asked how long Bubbles had partied with the band that night, Bon Jovi said it “seemed like a lifetime.”
“Quite a while, to the point where hotel management came and threatened to throw us out. Oh yeah. We partied with Bubbles,” he quipped.
Jackson bought Bubbles, born in 1983, from a Texas research facility in the ’80s.
The Center for Great Apes revealed that Bubbles was four years old when he embarked on Jackson’s promotional tour in Japan.
Bubbles “retired” from fame in 2005 and resides at the sanctuary in California, where Jackson’s estate supports the pet’s “annual care costs.”
