“The name Donny Osmond was a joke, years ago,” the “Sacred Emotion” singer, 67, said. “I mean, if you said you like Donny Osmond music, you were ousted.”
“I asked, Mike, how do I get back on the charts?” Osmond recalled, adding, “He said, ‘Your name’s poison, Donny. You gotta change your name.’”
“It was very offensive,” Osmond said. “It was tough to hear that.”
But Jackson “was right,” Osmond acknowledged, “because in ‘89, radio stations all across the country played my music, but didn’t say my name.”
“And they did me a favor by not saying who I was, and it became a hit,” he noted. “Then they found out it was me.”
Osmond rose to fame as part of The Osmonds with his brothers Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay. He eventually broke out as a solo act and as a duo with his sister, Marie Osmond.
Jackson had a similar career path; he started in the Jackson 5 with his siblings before having a breakthrough as a solo artist. In 1982, he became a global sensation when “Thriller” was released.
In November, Osmond opened up about his relationship with Jackson — who died in 2009 at age 50 — in the documentary “Larger Than Life: Reign of the Boybands.”
“If you look at the Osmonds and the Jackson 5, the comparisons of the two families are just uncanny,” said Osmond. “There are nine children in each family. Mike and I are both the seventh child of nine. Our mothers’ birthdays are on the same day. Michael and I are the same age.”
Osmond and Jackson would bond over their dads, George Osmond, and Joe Jackson, being similar, too.