Michael Jackson Loved Eating These 8 Foods

Celebrities have unique eating habits just like the rest of us. Among Marilyn Monroe's favorite foods and drinks, for example, was a mixture of raw eggs and milk. Ringo Starr's favorite sandwich has just two ingredients – bread and cheese, but woe betide any cook who uses a cheese made with anything other than goat's milk. Michael Jackson was the most famous pop star of his generation, and his eccentricities were well-documented. He achieved worldwide fame from an early age as a member of the Jackson 5 and later reached unprecedented levels of notoriety through his solo career, erratic behavior, and persistent allegations about his conduct with children. His food preferences are hardly the most relevant pieces of the puzzle that made up this eternally enigmatic public figure, but they are revealing in their own way.

Jackson seemed to have a difficult relationship with food at certain points in his adult life, adhering to a strict vegetarian diet during some periods, and a diet of Kentucky Fried Chicken for breakfast, lunch, and dinner at other times. Reports of Jackson's food preferences in various biographies and in interviews with his personal chefs reveal that his desires and requirements fluctuated over the years as his career shifted from moderate fame to all-out superstardom. From KFC to trail mix, here are some of the foods he ate the most.

There was a certain point in his life when Michael Jackson's love of KFC seemed to know no bounds. Documents that were obtained during litigation between the King of Pop and the airline XtraJet in the early 2000s revealed that Jackson requested fried chicken from the beloved Southern chain for every single meal. He wouldn't settle for any old recipe, either. He wanted the original version made with chicken breasts, and he was very clear that there should be no skin whatsoever.

It wasn't just these documents that testified to Jackson's love of KFC. Plenty of famous friends attested to the fact that he could not get enough of this popular fried chicken chain. Magic Johnson recalled his delight at seeing the pop star with this beloved meal, while rapper Freddie Gibbs remembers that Jackson once bought out an entire KFC restaurant in Indiana. It wasn't always his style, but when the "Thriller" star was eating meat, he was nothing if not consistent.

The history of enchiladas dates all the way back to the Aztecs, but their popularity in the U.S. doesn't seem to be going anywhere centuries later. One of the countless Americans who adored this Mexican staple was Michael Jackson. He loved enchiladas so much, in fact, that they were the reason he hired his personal chef, Mani Niall. In 1982, Niall was the catering manager at the popular Los Angeles restaurant, the Golden Temple, which specialized in vegetarian cuisine and was favored by stars like Demi Moore and Lily Tomlin. He met Jackson while delivering the restaurant's chile enchiladas to one of his recording sessions, and before he knew it, he was delivering food to the star on a regular basis. Eventually, Jackson hired Niall as his personal chef. 

According to Niall, the star's favorite recipe was the smoky red chile sauce that was poured over the enchiladas. He loved it so much that he requested it to be served atop potato skins and nachos, too. In his defense, though, we totally get it. Who wouldn't want freshly made chile sauce from a home chef?

Like many of Michael Jackson's other favorite foods, mac and cheese is significantly less obscure and controversial than what you might expect from such a notoriously unusual celebrity, but according to one of his private chefs, it was one of his two most beloved recipes. Stella Lemarque, a Parisian-born cook who worked for Jackson at his famous Neverland Ranch in the '80s, wrote a brief cookbook dedicated to her time there entitled "The Two Favorite Recipes of Michael Jackson." In addition to an obligatory fried chicken recipe was one for mac and cheese.

Lemarque claimed that Jackson favored the dish as a child, which might explain why he was so fond of it as an adult. Most of us have warm feelings about certain recipes that remind us of childhood, and it seems that the world's most famous pop star was no different. His preferred recipe was pretty simple — no caviar or lobster or flakes of real gold for him. A dash of paprika and a tablespoon of dry mustard were pretty much the extent of the spices, while Gruyère was the preferred cheese. It's easy to see why he couldn't get enough of it.

During his adherence to a health-conscious diet, Michael Jackson cut sugar out of his life completely. That did not mean, however, that his meals were purely savory. His personal chef, Mani Niall, revealed that he got around the no sugar rule with a simple solution: maple syrup. He was even more specific, though, telling People in 2015 that he used to make the star pecan cookies with the delicious ingredient, a flavor combination we can certainly get behind. In fact, we have our very own recipe for maple pecan cookies that you can try out. They might not be exactly what the King of Pop ate, but they certainly convey the deliciousness of the key ingredients. 

Cookies aside, though, Niall admitted that it could be difficult to work for Jackson. The pop star had a powerful sweet tooth but wouldn't touch sugar, and to make matters even more challenging, he didn't like chocolate. Maple syrup was one of the few options Niall had to work with that Jackson was willing to eat.

Another one of Michael Jackson's favorite foods during his healthy phase was pizza with vegetables. He'd met personal chef Mani Niall through his favorite vegetarian restaurant, after all, so it's hardly surprising that veggie-heavy recipes would dominate his daily menu. According to Niall (via People), however, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Jackson didn't like vegetables at all. The chef's recipe for pizza topped with eggplant and shiitake mushrooms was a way of feeding the star veggies without making him feel like he was actually eating vegetables, a challenge with which many parents of small children can sympathize.

One of Jackson's biographers, J. Randy Taraborrelli, claimed that the singer turned to vegetarianism not out of concerns about animal cruelty or even his physique, but to cure his acne early in his career. If this is the case, it makes sense that he would spend many years trying to find workarounds. He wasn't a fan of vegetables to begin with, so sticking to the diet depended entirely on his chefs' abilities to disguise their main ingredients.

At the peak of his health kick, Michael Jackson dove into one of the more restrictive and loosely defined diets out there – the macrobiotic diet. It's not just a vegan diet, but a diet that focuses on unprocessed carbohydrates and foods that are low in fat. For the most part, a person eating a macrobiotic diet will stick with whole grains, legumes, and organic produce. This left few options, especially for a person who, as his personal chef claimed, did not like vegetables.

In addition to eggplant pizza and maple cookies, Jackson gravitated towards trail mix. It must have been a much-needed source of calories for him, especially towards the end of his life when. In an interview with E! News, his nutritionist, Cherilyn Lee, stated that it was one of the few solid foods that he would eat. There is no denying that Jackson's diet could be restrictive to the point of concern at times. One of his biographers, J. Randy Taraborrelli, quoted Jackson's manager Frank DiLeo as saying, "If I ate like him, I'd be dead."

Even when he was avoiding sugar, Michael Jackson found a way to indulge in some ice cream. These days, the frozen dessert section is full of sugar-free options, but the pop star didn't need to rely on the grocery store to get his fix. His private chef saw to it that he had homemade vanilla ice cream sweetened with honey to wash down his spicy enchiladas after dinner whenever he wanted it. The chef would even travel with the ice cream maker whenever he accompanied Jackson on trips, just to make sure his client was never deprived if the craving struck.

Jackson's love of ice cream ran so deep that it warranted its own helicopter at one point. One personal chef who was in charge of the pop star's meals whenever he visited the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim recalled a moment when the staff misplaced Jackson's frozen dessert and embarked on a thorough search around the whole property to locate it. When it was found (not surprisingly) completely melted, it was considered to be enough of a catastrophe that they ordered a helicopter to fly in the star's favorite type of ice cream for his dinner that evening, a true demonstration of star power if ever there was one.

Fortunately for Michael Jackson, popcorn is a relatively guilt-free snack that is both vegetarian and (depending on how you make it) vegan. Even when he was sticking to a macrobiotic diet, he would probably still have been able to eat this humble movie theater staple, as long as it was homemade and not overly doused in oil. Jackson was such a fan of popcorn that his personal chef would take a popcorn popper with him in a suitcase whenever he traveled with the pop star.

Even more revealing was the fact that Jackson had a popcorn machine at his condo in Los Angeles, where he often spent time away from Neverland Ranch. Despite being one of the most recognizable people in the world with significant wealth at his fingertips, Jackson lived humbly in the condo. His friend David Nordahl remembered being stunned by how bare the apartment was when he first visited it. Aside from a piano, a TV, and a sound system, the popcorn maker was one of the few luxuries in the modest two bedroom property.