In 1985 Michael Jackson had just released his sixth studio album Thriller to critical acclaim. The young American star was quickly becoming one of the hottest artists around and was keen to expand his wealth and renown as best he could. After working with a member of The Beatles, Paul McCartney, on some music Jackson made a decision to purchase the copyright to some classic hits.

Why did Michael Jackson buy the rights to The Beatles’ music?

Jackson worked with McCartney on the song Say Say Say in 1983. During their time together, McCartney told Jackson about the wonders of song publishing rights.

The Fab Four member later revealed how he inadvertently gave Jackson the idea about buying up the rights to the Liverpool lads’ back catalogue from ATV Music in 1985.

Jackson went on to own The Beatles’ songs until 2009 when he died. After that, the tracks returned back to Sony.

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SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH PAUL MCCARTNEY TALK ABOUT MICHAEL JACKSON BUYING HIS MUSIC

Retelling the story on The Graham Norton Show in 2014, McCartney recalled: “[We lost] the early Beatles stuff. It was a carve-up.

“We didn’t know anything about any of that [music management], so we got ripped off. But hey, what the heck?”

Talking about Jackson, McCartney went on: “Yeah, it was a strange one yeah. I was working with Michael at that time, he rang me up over Christmas. [He said:] ‘Hi it’s Michael, do you want to make some hits?'”

When the pair started working together, McCartney tried to give the young star some advice.

Shortly thereafter Jackson bought ATV Music for approximately $47 million in 1985 on August 10.

McCartney later spoke out: “I think it’s dodgy to do something like that, to be someone’s friend, and then buy the rug they’re standing on.”

The pair of pop stars reportedly didn’t speak much after the incident.

The King of Pop wrote about the experience in his 1988 autobiography Moonwalk.

Jackson penned: “Paul and I both learned the hard way about business and the importance of publishing and royalties and the dignity of songwriting.”

In 2016, seven years after Jackson’s death, McCartney launched a legal suit to recover his half of the Lennon-McCartney song catalogue from Sony.

This happened shortly after copyright laws changed in the USA to allow authors of music to reclaim the rights to their music published before 1978.

Eventually, McCartney reclaimed the rights of his music back to him once and for all.

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