Entertainment

Madonna tells James Corden she tongue-kissed Michael Jackson

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Some might say it's a major moment in pop music history confirmed, some might say "Gross, keep it to yourself, Madge." 

Either way, James Corden's shameless internet-pleaser Carpool Karaoke scored another viral headline overnight.

While chauffeuring her around the streets of New York City, the British late night host got Madonna to kiss-and-tell about her long-rumoured dalliance with the late King Of Pop, Michael Jackson.

"You were friends with Michael Jackson. What was that like?," Corden asked, following singalongs to hits including Papa Don't PreachVogueRay Of Light and Don't Cry For Me Argentina.

"So you want me to kiss and tell?," Madonna replied, sending the conversation down an unexpected path.

"What, did you kiss Michael Jackson?," Corden followed up, incredulously.

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"Of course. I mean, baby, I've been around," the 58-year-old replied. "Yes, tongue-in-mouth kissing. I haven't had the chance to talk about it, because no one ever asks me."

Corden, seizing the moment, asked the question on everyone's lips: who makes the first move in a Madge-on-MJ makeout?

"Well, I did, if you wanna know the truth. Because he was a little bit shy," Madonna replied.

"However, he was a willing accomplice. I did get him to sort of loosen up with a glass of chardonnay. And it worked wonders."

The Queen and King of Pop's friendship at the height of their fame in the early '90s has long been the subject of music history conjecture.

In a recent review of Michael Jackson's 1991 album Dangerous, Pitchfork writer Jeff Weiss delved into their rumoured dalliance.

According to the pop star's friends, the couple "went out to dinner at least three times" in March and April of 1991, where Jackson asked Madonna to duet on his single, In The Closet.

The duet was quickly scrapped, with Madonna blaming Jackson's timidity in taking the song further than a "provocative title".

According to Weiss, she was eager to give Jackson a New York 'Club Kid' makeover, including a "Caesar haircut, and getting him out of his bedazzled military uniforms." MJ, meanwhile, was just getting into hip-hop.

"I said, 'Look Michael, if you want to do something with me, you have to be willing to go all the way or I'm not going to do it'," Madonna told Jonathan Ross about their falling out in an interview in 1992.

Jackson's solo version of the song, produced by New Jack Swing maestro Teddy Riley, hit the Top 5 in Australia and the US in 1992, largely thanks to a music video featuring the popstar awkwardly grinding all over supermodel Naomi Campbell.

"When I asked Michael later about [Madonna's] visit [to the recording studio], he said that she 'scared' him. I think we all speculated that she tried to make a 'move' on him but Michael never said," the album's engineer Rob Dinser later said about the scrapped collaboration.   

Well, now we have the confirmation. Thanks to James Corden, which is unexpected.

In another highlight from the segment - which saw Madonna risking a traffic fine to remove her passenger-side seatbelt and twerk to her 2015 single, Bitch I'm Madonna - the singer also discussed her childhood desire to become a nun, a goal since sidelined as she's been excommunicated from the Catholic Church three times.

"I liked their uniform. It's kind of perverse. I imagined all sorts of things going on under that big long robe," she said.

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