No, this isn’t a late April Fool’s Day prank! Ahmed Best (the actor who portrayed Jar Jar Binks in the divisive Star Wars prequels) has revealed in a recent interview with The King of Pop Michael Jackson actually wanted to take on that role in 1999’s The Phantom Menace.

Talking to Vice, he recalled the time he, Natalie Portman, and Star Wars director George Lucas met the singer and his then wife Lisa Marie Presley at a concert in Wembley Arena.

“George introduced me as ‘Jar Jar’ and I was like, That’s kind of weird,” the actor says. “Michael was like, ‘Oh. OK.’ I thought, ‘What is going on?'” Well, Michael wanted do the part but he wanted to do it in prosthetics and makeup like ‘Thriller.'” That sounds…weird?

Best goes on to explain that Lucas told him that he didn’t cast Jackson because he was worried the singer would have been bigger than the movie, with his stardom overshadowing the movie as a result. Jar Jar was a pretty terrible CGI creation though, so the idea of bringing him to life through makeup and prosthetics isn’t half bad when you think about it!