What did Mica Paris reveal about Whitney on Greatest Hits Radio?

The British soul singer was a guest on the Jackie Brambles show on Greatest Hits Radio this evening.

She was there ahead of their appearance together for this Friday’s Greatest Hits Live show at the London Palladium.

The 80s soul legend talked about playing footsie with Whitney Houston, how Prince launched her career and why she was so bad at Strictly Come Dancing.

Jackie asked Mica about her meeting Whitney and getting into the music business. She answered that she’d never have got signed if Whitney Houston hadn’t been blowing up the charts at that time.

“The UK was looking for their own Whitney and that’s why I got signed, because really I’m a church singer – you can hear that gospel,” Mica told Jackie. “Whitney and I first met in Germany when we did a TV show together, both just kids, and she had so many bodyguards whilst I was sat there with just one A&R guy and I remember going ‘why don’t I have that?!’”

Continuing, Mica said: “But she was lovely and asked me out for dinner, but we were chatting away and she was playing footsie under the table.

“I’ve never said it, but I think she had a little crush on me and to be honest I was a bit intimidated by it. I wasn’t used to that – I’d just come out of the church. But she was a really good person and sometimes I sit down, and I think I’m so grateful I’m still here.”

Another star who helped Mica in the early days was Prince. She revealed to Jackie that Prince had heard about her from one of the guys in Aswad, although she didn’t know that until years later. He called her to meet him at an after-show gig he was doing in Camden.

“I literally couldn’t feel my feet touch the ground as I had grown up listening to him, even though I used to have to hide his records under my bed because my grandparents were Pentecostal Ministers and we weren’t allowed to have that kind of music in the house,” Mica said.

At the gig Mica took the mic and sang Just My Imagination, and the next day it was in all the papers. After that, My One Temptation was released, and she thinks that Prince played a massive part in the song being such a big hit.

“Strangely the last time I saw him was at another gig at Camden Palace about four months before he died – and he looked so different,” Mica revealed. “I was shocked that he was so thin, and I knew something wasn’t right, but I didn’t think that we were going to lose him,” she added.

The conversation turned to Mica’s short-lived Strictly Come Dancing appearance back in 2007: “I was shocking at Strictly,” she admitted. “I was so bad at that show – second out, that’s how bad I was! Thank God it was so long ago no one remembers.”

She said that the reason was, that coming from the 80s most artists had someone doing the dancing for them!

“All I did was stand there with the wind machine going and that was dancing in the 80s! In my head ‘I know Mica, you have an amazing voice you’re very talented but don’t dance’,” she joked.

She added that Ian Waite, her professional dance partner on the show was great, but she begged him not to lift her up because she’d only had a baby seven months before doing the show. “It was great for getting back in shape though,” she said.