One of the moments that punctuated the remarkable Instagram battle between Babyface and Teddy Riley was a never-before-heard story about the late, legendary Michael Jackson.
More than a half-million music fans listened to the treasure trove of R&B classics from both Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, 62, and Edward Theodore “Teddy” Riley, 52, on Monday, April 20, 2020. At one point, Babyface hit the pause button and regaled the audience with the story the King of Pop wanting to date model-turned-actress Halle Berry, 53.
The revelation came after Riley played SWV’s remix hit “Human Nature,” which originally appeared on Jackson’s all-time bestselling album Thriller.
“Speaking of MJ, it reminds me of this true story, fun fact. One time, Michael called me, ‘Babyface, do you know who Halle Berry is?”
“‘Yeah, I know Halle,” Babyface answered.
“He asked, ‘Could you do me a favor? I want you to call her ’cause I want to take her out on a date.’ I asked ‘What?’ He said, ‘Call her. I want to take her out on a date.’ So, I reached out for the agent because I didn’t have Halle Berry’s number,” Babyface recalled.
Babyface, who formed a history-making songwriting and production duo with Antonio “L.A.” Reid that put Atlanta on the musical map in the 1980s, followed through on Jackson’s wishes and contacted the manager.
The manager, after receiving MJ’s request, answered, “‘What?’”
Babyface said, “‘Yeah, he really wants to take her out on a date.’ And I was waiting to hear back from her, and I cannot tell you exactly what Halle said, but I just imagine it probably would’ve been something like this…'”
That’s when Babyface played Berry’s famous verbal smackdown of Eddie Murphy’s character Marcus in the hit 1992 movie Boomerang:
“What do you know about love,” Berry’s character began.
Listen as Babyface waxed poetically on the MJ-Berry story.
Babyface and Teddy Riley are live on Instagram rn, and Babyface talked about that one time Michael wanted to take Halle Berry on a date 😭 pic.twitter.com/uomIeqGtuw
— Julie 🪐 (@juliejksn) April 21, 2020
Instagram and Twitter loved the story, which was viewed by more than 150,000 people and responded in kind:
Halle should have taken him up on it. After all, he cleared up the fact that Billie Jean was not his lover, which meant he was available
— The Iconic APRIL (@aprilbrucker) April 21, 2020
— floacist (@floacist) April 21, 2020
They should have dated!! Omg 🤧😵😵
— Emma Stage Ⓥ (@piscesfullmoon) April 21, 2020
I so wanna hear the full story 😂😂😂
— Debayo Manuel (@debayo_manuel) April 21, 2020
We need a True Hollywood story out of this
— TP (@TGotDamP) April 21, 2020
