Eye of the tiger

Billie Jean, one of Jackson’s top-selling singles and one of the most successful songs of all time, was released on January 2 1983. On March 10 that year it became the first music video by a black artist to air on MTV. According to NME, this happened only after Walter Yetnikoff, president of record label CBS, threatened to pull all his artists off the channel unless MTV revised its all-white playlist. The tiger cub that appeared in the video was one of Jackson’s pets and went by the name of Thriller