1991 Princess Stephanie of Monaco

Recording for ITC must have taken place May 1991  – October 29, 1991.

Princess Stephanie secretly records her vocals of ITC with Michael under the alias “Mystery Girl.”

Brad Sundberg, integrator, on the recording sessions for Dangerous

On celebrity visitors and chimps …

It was not uncommon for celebrities or VIPs to stop in. One day the Secret Service searched the building for a couple hours before Nancy Reagan came for a visit. Next it was Princess Stephanie from Monaco … The chimps were common guests in the studio, as was a giant snake, both of which I would wind up holding during MJ’s vocals.

Presents him with Award, WMA May 1993

Michael confirms the rumours that the Mystery Girl is Stephanie to fans in Gstaad September 27-October 6 1993,

Who is the “Mystery Girl” who sings on “In the Closet”?

Princess Stephanie of Monaco, according to Black & White and MTV Australia. Michael confirmed this while speaking with fans in Gstaad in 1993.

In an interview on British TV, Madonna revealed that she was the original
choice to be the Mystery Girl. When Michael asked her to do a duet, she agreed,and he played a preliminary version of the song for her. She asked him if heknew what the title meant, and he said he did. Not realizing the joke, she found this very unexpected and intriguing of Michael and went home and wrote more lyrics in the spirit of the title. He didn’t like the new lyrics, so they ended up not doing the song together. Princess Stephanie took over.

WMA pre show interview, May 8th 1996

Stephanie of Monaco, “He’s a very sweet and gentle person and he’s really a very kind human being.”

NY Post, 15th October 2000

At the same time, she’s having a recording studio built into her holiday home in Auron, France, and is planning a full album. She’s hoping to get the likes of Michael Jackson (who’s a sucker for princesses), Luciano Pavarotti, Bono and Mick Jagger to do duets with her.

Joe Jackson’s autobiography (rough translation from German), 2004

Well all right, anyway, later Michael dated princess Stephanie of Monaco and had even secretly recorded a song with her. Certainly nobody had to find out that Stephanie was the female voice in this duet. Michael never wanted that the public found out too much about them women he was interested in. And since his private life is all out there, you can’t blame him for it.

Then (by 1993) Michael already for a long time has finished the relationship with Tatum O’Neil, Brooke Shields, the young dancer, Stephanie of Monaco and some other women.

When he has flown to Monaco to the World Music Awards with June Chandler, he has taken all  three of them with himself and introduced them to the Princess Stephanie.

Stephanie, French Interview on RadioMonaco , 15th July 2009

Summary (thanks to tb24 on LSA)

She says MJ heard one of her albums and chose her because he felt she had the type of voice he was looking for for the speaking part of ITC

She thought it was a joke when her manager said MJ wanted her to record the song.

They actually weren’t together long for the recording session. She arrived in LA in the evening, met with him and discussed what he wanted from her for the singing/speaking, recorded it the next day, and then she left LA that evening.

Originally the reason that she was not named on the recording was because there was supposed to be a contest to figure out who the mystery girl was. This concept basically went out the window when Naomi (who she said was friends with Quincy Jones) was cast in the video.

She was quite bothered by this back then because, as a youngish aspiring artist, it would’ve been a great boost to her career for it to have been publically known she was the girl on ITC. She was concerned back then that people would assume that since Naomi was in the video that it was her on the recording. You can tell she’s a bit bitter about this…she basically said something like ‘This is why Naomi and I aren’t great girlfriends.” She was joking, but not really…

When asked by the interviewer what he was like, she spoke a lot about how touching and extemely sensitive and vulnerable he was.That he’s the kind of person you easily get attached to. She said that “you just want to hold him strongly in your arms and tell him that everthing will be alright, to reassure him.” The interviewer said ”like a child?” and she responded, ”Worse than a child. He was an ”écorché vif” (He had his heart on a sleeve), I felt this enormous sensibility. It’s a wonderful memory.”

But she also said that it was in part becasuse of this sensitivity and vulnerability that he had such talent.

She said she only saw him briefly at the WMAs in 96. She said he seemed ill at ease and uncomfortable. I think she speculated that it was because of what was going on in his life at that time…she didn’t elaborate on what she was alluding to.

Regardless of the issues around the recording, she said it was a wonderful experience and she was honored to work with him

She said it was hard speaking about him in the past tense.