Loyal fans around the world delighted in debating whether Jackson's "Thriller" bested Prince's "1999" and "Purple Rain," and the media liked to play up the idea of a rivalry.
Though they denied ever having a beef, tensions between the two men sometimes spilled over into public.
One such instance, recorded on grainy videotape, occurred in 1983 during a James Brown concert in Los Angeles.
MUST READ: Transcript of 911 call after Prince found unresponsive
MUST READ: Music legend Prince dead at 57
At one point, the Godfather of Soul summons Jackson to the stage. He promptly moonwalks across the stage and pulls off some impeccable Brown moves.
Then Jackson whispers something to Brown, who demands that Prince join them.
The diminutive legend plays a couple of licks on guitar and showed off some deft dance moves, but Jackson notably ignores him.
In 1985, Prince was criticized when he pulled out of contributing to Jackson's song "We Are the World," which raised money for famine-stricken Ethiopia.
In 1987, Jackson offered Prince a duet on his upcoming album "Bad," but Prince declined.
Both born in 1958, the two singers came from very different backgrounds.
Whereas Jackson had been sculpted from his early childhood to become a pop sensation, Prince was a self-made musician from Minneapolis.
The two showmen presented radically different images, with Jackson cutting an iconic figure in his red leather jacket while Prince preferred thongs, ruffled blouses and overcoats.
Jackson's pop seemed innocent and clean-cut, in contrast to Prince's lewd lyrics and overtly sexual performances.
One anecdote, recounted in the 2015 Jackson biography "MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson," tells of a time in 2006 when Prince invited Jackson to his show in Las Vegas, then proceeded to walk into the audience, find Jackson and play "aggressive slap bass" very close to his face.
"Prince has always been a meanie. He's just a big meanie," Jackson supposedly complained afterwards.
Prince was the only one of the pair to publicly criticize the other, singing in the 2004 song "Life 'o' The Party" that "My voice is getting higher/And Eye ain't never had my nose done," in a reference to Jackson, who had multiple plastic surgeries.
Jackson died in 2009 at age 50 from a lethal overdose of sedatives.
Prince died Thursday at his secluded compound in Minnesota. He was 57.
