Michael Jackson Wanted to Be a Part of Disney's 'Hunchback of Notre Dame'

Michael Jackson originally wanted to be part of a big animated movie.

The late King of Pop requested to be a part of 1996′s Hunchback of Notre Dame, it was just revealed by composter Alan Menken in an oral history of the film.

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The composer opened up about how Michael Jackson expressed a strong interest in appearing in the project’s soundtrack.

“I get a call out of nowhere from Michael‘s assistant, when Michael was at the Four Seasons Hotel in New York. He had to [deal with] allegations about inappropriate behavior with underage kids, and the breakup with Lisa Marie Presley,” he said.

“He’s looking to change the subject. And he obviously loves Disney so much. So I mentioned Hunchback. He said he’d love to come to my studio, watch the movie, and talk about it. So we got in touch with Disney Animation. They said, ‘Meet with him! If he likes it…well, see what he says.’”

The composer then showed MJ three songs: “Out There,” “God Help the Outcasts” and “Someday.”

“Michael said, ‘I would like to produce the songs and record some of them.’ Wow. Okay. What do we do now? Michael left. We got in touch with Disney. It was like somebody dropped a hot poker into a fragile bowl with explosives. ‘Uh, we’ll get back to you about that,’” he explained.

“Finally, predictably, the word came back, ‘Disney doesn’t want to do this with Michael Jackson.’ I go, ‘OK, could someone tell him this?’ You can hear a pin drop, no response, and nobody did [tell him]. It fell to my late manager, Scott Shukat, to tell Michael or Michael‘s attorney. In retrospect, it was the right decision. [But] Quasimodo is a character… if you look at his relationships with his family and his father, I would think there’s a lot of identification there.”

His daughter, Paris Jackson, recently revealed what it was really like growing up in the public eye.