Michael Jackson's Motown 25 moonwalk went wrong, Shalamar's Jeffrey Daniel claimed

Originally posted on Contact Music | Last updated Apr 28, 2026 11:00 AM ET

Michael Jackson messed up his iconic moonwalk at Motown 25, the man who taught him the dance move claimed.

The King of Pop created a moment in pop culture history when he debuted his iconic dance at the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever special in 1983 but Shalamar star Jeffrey Daniel was in the audience that day and has said that his seemingly perfect glide wasn't what Michael wanted.

Asked how long it took Michael to master the dance, Jeffrey told Contact Music in a previous interview: "That I can't answer because I first showed him in 1980. He did it publicly in 1983. Now that doesn't mean to say that it took him three years to learn it. He may have been just waiting for the perfect opportunity to exhibit the dance.

"I was at the Motown 25th anniversary, I was in the audience. Here's the funny thing about it; no one knew that was going to happen.

"He did Billie Jean, he did about three scoots into the spin and landed on his toes.

"When the performance was over, I went over to him and said, 'Wow, Michael, you did it.' He said, 'Yeah, but it didn't work out the way I wanted it to.' I said, 'Bro, whatever you did out there, you killed the audience.'"

The dance move went on to be synonymous with Jackson - who died in 2009 at the age of 50 and is the subject of new movie biopic Michael - throughout his music career.

Credit: Getty Images

Jeffrey remembers that when Michael first performed the moonwalk those around him in the audience were shocked because it was "his thing" to begin with.

The A Night To Remember hitmaker said: "But let me tell you what the funny thing was when Michael did that backslide for the first time on that stage, the audience jumped up.

"But the people who I knew looked at me because it was like, 'Michael's doing your thing.'"

Michael stars Jaafar Jackson - the Smooth Criminal singer's nephew and son of his brother Jermaine Jackson - as the King of Pop and tells the story of his incredible music career from his days in the Jackson 5 up until his Bad Tour performances at Wembley Stadium in 1988.

Antoine Fuqua new film scored the biggest opening weekend ever for a biopic after it hit cinemas last week bringing in $97 million in North America and $120.4 million internationally for a combined total of $217 million worldwide across its opening weekend.

Michael's worldwide opening weekend total places it ahead of Christopher Nolan's blockbuster Oppenheimer - a biopic based on the life of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer with Cillian Murphy in the title role - which brought in $180.4 million worldwide during its opening weekend in 2023 while Bohemian Rhapsody - about the rise of rock band Queen - made $124 million on opening in 2018.

This article first appeared on Contact Music and was syndicated with permission.

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