Full quote from Clive Davis book about Michael and Jermaine -

I had signed Jermaine Jackson to Arista and, like L.A. and Babyface, he had also worked with Whitney Houston. We had some success with his three albums for the label, but as we were getting started on his fourth, I thought he might be an ideal fit for LaFace. As Michael Jackson’s older brother, Jermaine was now in his late thirties and, beginning with the Jackson 5, had been making records for more than two decades. I thought that working with L.A. and Babyface would give him a new sound, expose him to a younger audience, and bring him success on the scale that he so badly wanted. Jermaine loved the idea, and L.A. and Babyface, who had grown up with the family mystique of the Jacksons, were excited as well. It seemed like a well-made match.

As the three of them began working on Jermaine’s first album for LaFace, which would be titled You Said, Jermaine was startled to learn that his brother Michael had approached L.A. and Babyface and offered them very substantial amounts of money to work on songs for his new album, and surprisingly they had agreed to do it. Everything they wrote during this immediate, well-defined period of a couple of weeks would be for Michael to use. Jermaine couldn’t believe that Michael, his close brother, would hijack his producers’ material this way. The tensions that existed within the Jackson family are no longer a mystery to anyone, and the sibling rivalry between Michael and Jermaine was certainly one element of them. Jermaine spent his professional life very much in his younger brother’s shadow, and, as brothers will, he saw himself as every bit Michael’s equal in terms of talent. That was not the case, of course. Really, it’s hard to think of any artist who could be compared to Michael Jackson, but Jermaine could not accept that. Consequently, he regarded Michael’s hiring L.A. and Babyface as a profound betrayal, and he was shaken to his core.

I had dinner with Jermaine in Paris around this time, and he was totally disconsolate throughout the entire meal. He was crying, indeed sobbing at times, so deeply hurt that his brother would do this to him. Unfortunately, that hurt turned to anger, and Jermaine recorded a song called “Word to the Badd” that was a bitter excoriation of Michael. It was leaked to radio and instantly created a sensation. In the song, Jermaine vilified Michael for lightening his skin; for being “a child,” not “a man”; and for “takin’ my pie,” a seeming reference to the situation with L.A. and Babyface. The tabloid media covered the song intensely. Jermaine was accused of leaking the song himself to piggyback on the media attention Michael was getting for his album Dangerous, which had come out not long before, and to call attention to his own album You Said. I have no idea if Jermaine did that or not, but the publicity backfired. He came off as petty and desperate. Of course, no one knew about the dramatic situation that had triggered his anger and generated the song in the first place.

“Word to the Badd” was set to go on You Said, and there wasn’t much I could do about that, even after Michael Jackson personally called me to complain. Michael and I had always been on good terms. We would often run into each other during the glory years of Studio 54. Both of us would be taking all of it in, and he always felt comfortable being next to me. He was a huge early fan of Whitney’s, and loved her music. In later years I would regularly invite him to my pre-Grammy party. He never ended up coming; his legal problems had already started, and I’m sure his lawyers advised him that it would not be a good idea while litigation was ongoing. But in the week before the show, he would call me every day and insist that he would be there. His security and publicity people would visit the venue, and he would want to know what table he’d be seated at and with whom he’d be sitting. He’d also want to know who would be performing. I never reveal that in advance, but in his case I knew he wouldn’t tell anyone. When the O’Jays were going to be there, he was so enthusiastic: “They’ve got to play ‘Back Stabbers’!” he declaimed. “Tell them I insist they perform ‘Back Stabbers’!” We would take turns singing songs together on the phone as we talked about the various artists who would be performing and his favorite hits of theirs.

It was in this spirit that Michael called me to pull “Word to the Badd” off Jermaine’s forthcoming album. He said, “I know you have respect for me, and I have respect for you. How could you let my brother do this? I don’t want you to release that record.” I told him, “Look, Michael, Jermaine is an artist on a label in which I have an interest. I do have great respect for you, but this really is a problem between the two of you. You’ve got to deal with him directly.” As uncomfortable as I was with what Jermaine had done, I felt it would be wrong for me to tell an artist to take a song off his album. This was a family and personal matter that they needed to resolve themselves. Michael said that Jermaine was avoiding him and he couldn’t find him anywhere. I told him, “He’s just gotten to your parents’ house. I spoke to him ten minutes ago.” A few hours later, Jermaine called me. “You’ll never guess what happened,” he said. “I’m at my parents’ house, and Michael went around to the back, climbed up and went through a window, and came down the stairs and confronted me with the problem. We really had it out.” Jermaine stuck to his guns and kept the song out there, but eventually he and Michael came to some sort of understanding. Jermaine softened the lyrics to the song and changed its focus. It stayed on You Said, but much of the sting had been taken out of it. Still, even recast as a lovers’ quarrel, the song says a great deal about the hurt Jermaine felt about what Michael had done: “You never think about who you love / You only think about number one / You forgot about where we started from / You only think about what you want / You don’t care about how it’s done.” Ultimately, the album didn’t make much impact, so the song is most interesting for the personal story it tells.

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