SLASH Wanted MICHAEL JACKSON To Sing On Solo Album

The Pulse of Radio reports that Slash apparently wanted the late Michael Jackson to contribute a guest vocal on his solo album before the singer died of cardiac arrest last June, according to Ace Showbiz. The former GUNS N' ROSES guitarist played lead solos on a handful of Jackson's songs in the past and said he regrets not asking Jackson to return the favor before his death at the age of 50 on June 25, 2009.

Slash said, "When I was thinking about who I wanted to work with, Michael crossed my mind. I thought about doing something that would see him totally cross over into rock. But it was around this time last year and he was flat-out rehearsing for the London O2 gigs so in the back of my mind I thought, 'He's not going to have the time.'"

Slash told The Pulse of Radio that he refused to take part in the media frenzy surrounding Jackson's death and skipped seeing "This Is It", the concert rehearsal film rush-released afterwards. "He'd been sort of completely ostracized by the public and the people that, you know, used to work for him and all that because of all these issues that he had," he said. "And he had a really rough last nine years. And then all of a sudden when he passed away, it was like, 'Oh, Michael,' you know? So I didn't want to have anything to do with everybody capitalizing on his death, so I didn't go see the movie and I'm sure he probably wouldn't have wanted them to make a movie out of rehearsal anyway."

Jackson was accused of child molestation in 1993 and again in 2003. He settled the first case and was acquitted of all charges in the second case in a 2005 trial.

Slash's debut solo album, released in April, features guest vocals from a number of artists, including Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop, Fergie, Chris Cornell and others.

As previously reported, Slash spoke with IHeartGuitar.com about the incident last weekend in Milan, Italy in which he was shoved by a man who somehow got onstage while the guitarist was performing his band. Slash said, "It was just some drunk guy — it doesn't seem like he had any ill will. He came up behind me and my security guard came up and tackled him, not knowing what the guy was capable of. The real melee was that tackle — my guard deflected the guy off me, and he got hooked onto my guitar, which I let go of, all in a split second."