Lionel Richie makes shocking claim about Michael Jackson’s hygiene

Lionel Richie has been spilling secrets, and it turns out Michael Jackson wasn’t always quite so polished off stage.

The 76-year-old Grammy winner and American Idol judge has just dropped his new memoir, Truly, and it’s packed with never-before-heard stories from a life lived alongside some of music’s biggest names.

One chapter in particular shines a light on his close friendship with Michael Jackson at the height of his fame.

According to Richie, the pair were deeply bonded through music, but couldn’t have been more different when it came to everyday life.

While Jackson could obsessively pick apart 15 different mixes of the same song, he was, to put it politely, a bit chaotic in other areas.

‘His day-to-day life was what you could call eccentric. Like an absent-minded professor but still a kid,’ Richie writes.

Quincy Jones even gave Jackson the nickname Smelly, because he often forgot to change his clothes for days on end.

‘Michael would laugh too, realizing that he was oblivious to the fact that he hadn’t changed or washed his clothes for a couple of days or so,’ Richie wrote. ‘We all have our quirks.’

Jackson, Richie explains, didn’t really have the luxury of nipping to the shops or sending laundry out on tour.

‘Everybody kept something for a souvenir,’ writes Richie. ‘He just got into the habit of wearing the same pants until they were unwearable.’

Richie recalls his pal showing up in everything from pyjama bottoms to slippers, or jeans so ill-fitting they barely qualified as trousers.

On one occasion, Richie handed over clean underwear and jeans and practically forced Jackson to take a shower.

He explained: ‘I drove him home, on his back streets, and he was sweet and thankful. As soon as I walked back into my house, I passed by the living room and noticed that there on the carpet was the pair of Michael Jackson’s underwear and his old ratty jeans. Just lying there like roadkill.’

He continued: ‘What do I do but laugh? MJ was here.’

Still, Richie insists none of it dimmed Jackson’s brilliance or their friendship.