The late Michael Jackson is known as the King of Pop, and many fans don’t want to see that title go to Chris Brown, 30. The R&B singer appeared to think otherwise when he shared fan art on May 10, which showed Chris wearing the crown now, which was actually the shadow of MJ’s crown. Breezy shared the art on May 10 — you can see it here. Explaining the picture, Chris wrote, “Learn from the greatness in a person .then learn from the greatness in you!❤️” But fans interpreted a much different message.
“No one replaces Michael Jackson period RIP LEGEND ALL THE TIME,” one angry fan commented, while another wrote, “No boy, no… Never!!! Michael is the only king.” The outrage piled on — “THIS Is stupid,” “SORRY BUT, NO” — and many more pleaded with Chris to delete the picture.
This isn’t the first time fans were offended by the idea of Chris being likened to Michael’s legacy. Justin Bieber, 25, who is one of Breezy’s biggest supporters in Hollywood, posted a “legendary” equation to Instagram on May 3, which claimed that MJ and Tupac Shakur added together equals CB. The suggestion disappointed many of the Biebs’ fans, as they resurfaced Chris’ attack against Rihanna a decade ago, which led the hip hop artist to plead guilty to a felony assault that year. Justin took to Instagram a day later to write that “Bullying is not okay.”
The King of Pop is one of Chris’ biggest idols. Following Michael’s death in 2009, Chris even paid homage to him at the 2010 BET Awards, where he donned that iconic sparkly glove and blazer to perform MJ’s biggest hits and later broke down into tears onstage. Once again, Chris busted out dance moves and a wardrobe inspired by the “Billie Jean” singer for his 2019 music video, “Back To Love.”