Mark Ronson recalls childhood encounter with Michael Jackson, says abuse allegations made him “Re-Examine” the memory

Mark Ronson, Michael Jackson

Grammy-winning producer Mark Ronson has opened up about a childhood encounter with Michael Jackson, and how the pop star’s later abuse allegations changed the way he remembers it.

In his new memoir, Night People: How to Be a DJ in ’90s New York City, Mark, 50, describes meeting the King of Pop while living near the Dakota apartments in New York. “It was always full of fascinating characters,” he writes, recalling the eccentric mix of neighbors, including Sean Lennon and Jackson himself, who stayed there during his Bad tour.

Goofing Around with the King of Pop

Mark remembered Jackson acting less like a global superstar and more like, well, a kid. He described the singer “wanting to goof around” by tossing “soggies”, "tightly packed mounds of wet toilet paper," out his window and playing with a laser pointer.

At one point, Mark, then just a child, tried to rope Jackson into humming a tune. “Michael, Michael, stand still for a sec and sing us a bass line!” he recalled shouting. To his surprise, Jackson obliged, offering a few bars of what turned out to be Smooth Criminal.

“It felt bizarre and normal at the same time,” Mark admitted, noting he never bragged at school about spending evenings throwing soaked Charmin onto the street with the world’s biggest star.

Re-Examining the Memory

Decades later, that seemingly innocent night doesn’t sit the same. Speaking to The Sun on September 15, Mark said the abuse allegations against Jackson—first surfacing in the 1990s and later reignited by HBO’s 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland—forced him to reassess what happened.

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"Obviously, with allegations that came later, of course it made me re-examine that event many times," he said to The Sun in an interview. "I wouldn't say it's a highlight of my childhood, but it was certainly one of the most memorable experiences."

"And of course I put it back through a lens a hundred times. I was like, for whatever reason, there was nothing weird or untoward on that night," added Mark.

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A Complicated Legacy

Jackson, who died in 2009 at age 50, remains one of the most polarizing figures in music. While his estate has repeatedly defended him against allegations from Wade Robson and James Safechuck, stories like Mark’s highlight how even chance encounters with the star are often reinterpreted through the lens of controversy.