“Weird Al” Yankovic has stopped performing his Michael Jackson parodies in concert amid rekindled allegations involving the late King of Pop, he explained in an interview Thursday.
Speaking to Billboard, Mr. Yankovic said that both “Eat It” and “Fat” — his Grammy Award-winning parodies of “Beat It” and “Bad” — are purposely being excluded from his current tour following the release of “Leaving Neverland,” a two-part film aired by HBO featuring interviews with men who claim they were sexually abused by Jackson as children.
“I don’t know if that’s going to be permanent or not,” Mr. Yankovic told the magazine, “but we just felt that with what’s happened recently with the HBO documentaries, we didn’t want anybody to feel uncomfortable.”
“I felt I had enough fan favorites in the show that I could get away with it. I haven’t gotten a lot of pushback; There have been some people who have expressed disappointment, but we decided to err on the side of not offending people,” he added.
Mr. Yankovic, 59, first gained attention 40 years ago when “My Bologna,” his accordion-driven spoof of “My Sharona” by the Knack, was featured by the syndicated radio personality known as Dr. Demento. He has released 14 studio albums and a film in the decades since, earning accolades along the way including five Grammy Awards and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Jackson gave Mr. Yankovic his approval to record and release “Eat It” in 1983, paving the way for the parodist to win his first Grammy in the category of Best Comedy Recording.
“I don’t know what kind of career I would have today if it hadn’t been for Michael Jackson,” Mr. Yankovic said following the singer’s death in 2009. “In a very real sense, he jump-started my career. ’Eat It’ basically changed me from an unknown into a guy that got recognized at Burger King.”
Jackson authorized Mr. Yankovic to parody “Bad” five years later and offered to let him film a music video for the song on a production set previously used by the singer. That video earned Mr. Yankovic his second Grammy in 1989.
Mr. Yankovic has performed “Fat” a total of 1,099 times for audiences since 1989, according to Setlist.fm, a user-contributed website where concertgoers chronicle songs played on stage. He has performed “Eat It,” either in whole or in part, more than 1,300 times in that same span, according to the site.
“Leaving Neverland” features interviews with two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, who claim they were repeatedly abused by Jackson when they were children. Jackson’s estate sued HBO for $100 million prior to the network airing it last March.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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