Yesterday we saw new previously unseen footage recently made available of the horrific burn accident that Michael Jackson suffered on the set of a Pepsi commercial that he and his brothers were filming back in January 1984. For the most part, everyone was well aware that MJ suffered an accident that left his head severely burned but, until yesterday, we had never seen exactly how the accident occurred. Today, Pepsi Cola Co. issued a statement in response to the release of that footage because, well, their commercial was the site of MJ’s accident. Here is the full text of Pepsi’s statement about the accident:
Pepsi has responded to yesterday’s appearance on the internet of footage of Michael Jackson being burned while filming an ad for the soft drink in 1984. Contacted by EW about the material, which was posted by US Weekly, Pepsi spokeswoman Nicole Bradley sent the following statement.
“We don’t know how the footage became available. Twenty-five years later, we’d question why anyone would want to share such frightening images. It was a terrifying event that we’ll never forget. We were grateful for Michael’s recovery and for the chance to continue working with him on a number of successful projects. As for Michael as an artist, his music helped us define a generation and, like everyone else, we’re deeply saddened by his passing.”
Bradley also told EW that the company is not currently attempting to get the footage taken down and that Pepsi itself may well not own the rights to the material. “We don’t know where it came from,” she says. “We don’t know what that footage is. It’s 25 years ago. We don’t know who owns it, so we have no recourse as far as I know. I can only tell you what I know. We didn’t put it up and we don’t know where it came from.”
It makes sense that Pepsi would want to express outrage at the release of the footage. 25 years later, they are being associated again with a terrible accident that severely injured the biggest pop star of our time. It totally makes sense that they would want to distance themselves from the whole thing all over again. I don’t exactly recall what their position was at the time of the accident but I don’t really remember that they were too keen to talk about it back then either. As I said yesterday, if blogging existed back in ‘84 we would’ve seen this footage back then. Because the accident was such a huge event in MJ’s life, it’s natural that we would want to know exactly what happened. In the end, I don’t think that anyone should feel any ill will towards Pepsi for this unfortunate accident. If we really want to blame them for something, how about Crystal Pepsi? I mean … yeah … WTF? was that all about?
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