Vincent Price was livid that he didn’t get residuals for Thriller rap

Michael Jackson’s Thriller is easily the best-selling album ever, with an estimated 70 million copies sold to date. And while we can’t put a whole lot of that on Vincent Price, his contributions to the “Thriller” song are undeniable. Unfortunately for him, his spoken portion didn’t net him a whole lot of money. And that came down to a deal that would later not leave him thrilled one bit.

As the story goes, Vincent Price agreed to record his brief voice work for “Thriller” for a flat fee of $20,000. Hey, for two takes, that’s a pretty successful day, but his paycheck could have been a lot fatter. According to John Landis, who directed the “Thriller” video, “Vincent [Price] called me about a year later and he said, ‘Look, the kid made the most successful record of all time and I made less than $1,000 dollars… Michael won’t take my calls… I’m very upset about it.’”

Around that time, Vincent Price would appear on British series Aspel & Company, where he expressed a certain disrespect for Jackson over not sharing the wealth of “Thriller.” As he told the host, “Michael sent me a wonderful gift. It’s a framed picture of him, life-sized…dressed. And it has a platinum record on it and a gold record…And at the bottom, it says, ‘To Vincent Price: Thank you so much for your help with ‘Thriller’ and in celebration of the 30th millionth album…’ Can you believe that? And I got none of it. I’m not bitter, mind you. I’m not bitter. Just hurt.”

We love us some Vincent Price here (especially so during Spooky Season), but by the way every story goes, he signed the “Thriller” contract knowing he would be paid the flat fee and nothing more; so, in that regard, Jackson didn’t do anything wrong. At the same time, Price was by most accounts doing just fine financially, so it would be nice to think that he did the gig for the sake of the project and that his comments are in his trademark wry tone.

As for how Vincent Price even came to be on “Thriller,” it’s the wife of producer Quincy Jones, Peggy Lipton, who brought him in. 

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