Why Jarvis Cocker 'mooned' Michael Jackson's BRITs performance

19 February 2026, 08:00 | Updated: 19 February 2026, 12:35

Michael Jackson - Earth Song (Brit Awards 1996)

The BRIT Awards 1996 will always go down as the day the Pulp frontman stole the King of Pop's thunder during Earth Song. But why did he do it?

By Radio X

@RadioX

Monday, 19th February 1996. Picture the scene. It's the BRIT Awards and global superstar Michael Jackson is mid-way through a flamboyant and even more over-the-top version of his Earth Song single than anyone ever thought possible.

Images of starving children are being projected onto a screen as Les Mis-looking actors begin generally worshipping at the altar that is MJ... until Jarvis Cocker shows up and bends over to wave his arse on national TV, of course. You can watch the whole incident unfold in real time in the video above. The Pulp star - accompanied by former bandmate Paul "Manners" Mansell - makes his entrance stage left at 4.41 into the clip.

Less of a "moon" and more of a bend and and flounce, the Common People singer turned away from the crowd, bent over and made a wafting gesture from his behind (as if to add a further comment on the music, we imagine), before demonstrating his zip-up top and running off.

Admittedly, by anybody's standards it's not exactly shocking.

But if you consider that this happened 13 years before Kanye West even considered interrupting Taylor Swift's MTV VMA Awards speech, and eight years before Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson had that 'nip-slip' moment at the Super Bowl, it puts the controversy in perspective.

However, Jackson's team were not amused and Cocker was immediately rushed to a police station and kept there until 3am with the singer reportedly detained on charges of "assaulting" some of the child performers on stage. He was accompanied by comedian Bob Mortimer, who had been a solicitor in a previous life.

Jacko's record company Sony issued a statement that said the pop legend was "sickened, saddened, shocked, upset, cheated and angry" about the incident.

In a statement, Cocker vehemently denied he'd assaulted anyone, saying: "I just ran on the stage and showed off. I didn't make any physical contact with anyone as far as I recall. I certainly didn't push anyone offstage. I find it very insulting to be accused of assaulting children. All I was trying to do was make a point and do something that lots of other people would have loved to have done if only they'd dared."

Others claimed that Cocker's impulsive action brought the elaborate staging of Jackson's song very much down to earth, with Noel Gallagher claiming the singer should get a Knighthood and The Daily Mirror starting a "Justice For Jarvis" campaign. Producer Brian Eno told ITN he thought the stunt "burst the balloon of pompous self-importance of the whole Michael Jackson thing".

On 11th March 1996, Cocker was told that all charges against him had been dropped. In a press conference, the relieved musician said: ""It's not very nice to have allegations that you would go and assault children or punch children or whatever. It was that one particular performance that I thought was in bad taste, so that's why did what I did."

But what exactly prompted the Pulp frontman to (not quite) bare behind during the King of Pop's performance anyway?

Asked about the incident on Channel 4's TFI Friday shortly after his stint in the slammer, the Britpop star said: "I was just sat there and watching it and feeling a bit ill, 'cause he's there doing his Jesus act.

"And I could kind of see - It seemed to me there was a lot of other people who kind of found it distasteful as well, and I just thought: 'The stage is there, I'm here and you can actually just do something about it and say this is a load of rubbish if you wanted'."

The latter half of Jackson's performance has plenty of messianic imagery, and by the end even sees him wearing all white and bathed in light as he transforms the lives of those onstage.

Speaking to MOJO magazine in 2025, Pulp keyboard player Candida Doyle admitted she may have goaded on the frontman. "I don’t know if I said to Jarvis, 'Well, do something...'” Doyle recalled. “I didn’t see Jarvis again that night. I think the next day we started an arena tour, and I said sorry. We’ve never spoken about it since. It feels a bit taboo.”

But while the whole affair seemed like just a bit of rebellious fun to most people (apart from the Jackson camp, of course), Cocker's arrest and notoriety had a rather more insidious effect on the star's life.

“Ever since I was a little kid I wanted to be in a band and be famous," he told The Sunday Times' Culture magazine in December 2025. “But after the Michael Jackson thing I entered a celebrity world where everyone just knew me, whether I made music or not."

Following hot on the heels of the tabloid feeding frenzy that accompanied the release of the Sorted For E's And Wizz single in September 1995, the Jackson incident put the Pulp frontman even further into the public eye, a position he'd never wanted. In fact, in 2003, Cocker moved to Paris for a time with his wife Camille Bidault-Waddington.

Now regarded as a national treasure in Britain, Jarvis Cocker looks back at the fallout from the BRIT Awards 1996 with some regret. He recalled: "I thought, is it even worth being in a band, given that it’s f***ed my life up?"