Lionel Richie is setting the record straight on a long-running Michael Jackson rumor.
During his appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, the Grammy-winning icon explained the real story behind why Jackson sometimes went by the nickname “Smelly.”
Richie admitted that the tale has often been twisted online and wanted to clear the air once and for all.
After dropping his memoir Truly, Lionel Richie noticed some outlets—including People—twisting one of his Michael Jackson anecdotes into a hygiene joke.
On The Joe Rogan Experience, Richie cleared it up once and for all:
“Everybody thought I was saying Michael smelled,” Richie said. “No—that was Quincy [Jones]’s nickname for him. ‘Here comes Smelly.’”
The nickname wasn’t about soap—it was about the constant chaos surrounding Jackson’s life. Richie explained that fans and insiders treated Michael’s clothes like souvenirs, so much of what he wore would disappear.
“Imagine sending your clothes out and only getting half of them back—the other half are souvenirs,” Richie said. “So he’d wear a pair of jeans until they tried to run away from him.”
He recalled Jackson sometimes showing up in shoes two sizes too big simply because they were a gift. “Michael, you could’ve gotten them in the right size,” Richie remembered telling him. Jackson’s reply? “I didn’t want to embarrass the guy.”
Between missing socks, vanished T-shirts, and jeans left behind on Richie’s floor, Jackson’s day-to-day was far from ordinary. “Every time he put on underwear, it was new—because the old ones never came back,” Richie laughed.
So yes, “Smelly” stuck—but it was a lighthearted inside joke, not an insult. For Richie, it’s just another glimpse into what life was really like around one of the world’s most iconic stars.
Truly is out now, diving even deeper into Richie’s journey—from his Commodores days to co-writing “We Are the World” with Jackson.
