R Kelly – the man behind the success of the song, You Are Not Alone, has spoken out the first time he met Michael Jackson after the legendary approached him, wanting to snag the song for his album because it was exactly what he had been looking for. Jackson, who died on the 25th June 2009, had met up with Kelly at the studio to record the song -  hiding his appearance but still offered a hug to the R&B star.

“He looked at least eight feet tall. He looked like an avatar. He was wearing a black mask over his face. Only his eyes were showing,” Kelly had written in his memoir, Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me.

“Finally, Mike walked over to me. He looked in my eyes, opened his arms, and gave me the hug of my life, whispering to me in his lighter-than-air, soft, high voice, ‘The world’s gonna be singing this song’. I blurted out something silly like, ‘Congratulations on everything you’ve done, Mike. Congratulations on being Michael Jackson’.

“‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘I’m just glad you like the song’. He said, ‘I don’t like it, Rob. I love it. I don’t want to change one thing. I want to sing it just the way you wrote it. You captured me beautifully. That’s the reason I came here. We can get started just as soon as I do my vocal warm-ups’.

“‘If you excuse me for a minute,’ I said, ‘I’ll be right back’. I walked to the bathroom and just fell out on the floor. I broke down and cried. It wasn’t that Michael Jackson was singing my song; it was that Michael had felt how I’d caught his spirit. Michael Jackson had come to Chicago to work with me!

Michael then asked Kells if he wanted to record the background vocals for the song, where he said: “‘Rob’, he said in that high, sing-song voice, ‘Would you mind coming in here and singing backgrounds with me?’. Mind? Are you kidding? Michael Jackson was asking me to sing with him!

“I had to practically stop myself from running to the vocal booth. I paced myself so I could walk slowly, but in my heart I felt like a little girl.”