Stephen King’s encounter with Michael Jackson in 1993, while working on the Ghosts music video, was full of bizarre moments. King recalled Jackson calling his wife to get his number, only for the pop star to struggle writing it on the carpet with his finger. Despite this odd interaction, King agreed to help Jackson with the project, which eventually became a 39-minute video.

Though the final product strayed from King’s original vision, he admired Jackson’s dancing and the emotional depth of the video. King saw it as an allegory of Jackson’s own troubled life, with the star’s desire to please shining through. Want to know more about this strange collaboration and its impact?

Stephen King, the master of horror, has spent decades navigating the unpredictable world of the entertainment industry. Yet even for someone accustomed to oddities, working with Michael Jackson took strangeness to a whole new level.

In 1993, King was on the set of the miniseries adaptation of The Stand when he received an unexpected call from the pop superstar. Jackson wanted King to create the “scariest music video ever made,” which he envisioned as Ghosts. “Stephen, we must do this,” King recalled Jackson saying. “We’re going to shock the world.”

King accepted the challenge, developing a story about a man with supernatural powers who lives in a castle on the outskirts of town, only to face the wrath of a mob of angry townspeople. The project was directed by King’s friend Mick Garris, but from the start, Jackson’s unconventional behavior added a surreal layer to the production.

One particularly strange incident involved King’s wife, Tabitha. Jackson had called asking for King’s phone number. After she provided it, he called back five minutes later, tearful. “He hadn’t had a pencil,” King remembered, “so he’d tried to write the number on the carpet with his finger, and he couldn’t read it.” Though he was given the number again, King noted that Jackson never actually called.

After three weeks, production was abruptly halted for reasons King never fully understood. Three years later, the project resumed without Garris, and the final product diverged considerably from King’s original concept. At 39 minutes long, Ghosts became a groundbreaking long-form music video, featuring Jackson performing three of his songs: “2 Bad,” “Is It Scary,” and the title track, “Ghosts.”

Visually, the film evokes echoes of Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, though Jackson’s signature musical and dance style remain unmistakable. Before Pharrell Williams’ 24-hour video for “Happy” in 2013, Ghosts held the record as the longest music video ever made.

Despite the chaos of production and the alterations to his original script, King spoke highly of the final work. He praised Jackson’s dancing, calling it some of the artist’s most inspired. The story, he noted, reflects Jackson’s life as a supremely talented yet troubled figure, constantly striving to please. “You’ll also see Jackson’s sadness and almost painful desire to please,” King said. “‘Yes, I am strange,’ his eyes say, ‘But I am doing the best I can, and I want to make you happy. Is that so bad?’”

Though Ghosts may not reach the cinematic heights of Thriller (1983) or Martin Scorsese’s Bad (1987), King emphasized that Jackson’s talent is undeniable. The video stands as a fascinating, if unconventional, testament to the King of Pop’s artistry—and to the odd, unforgettable experience of creating it alongside one of the world’s most celebrated horror writers.