When Russell Crowe got prank calls from Michael Jackson

Actor Russell Crowe has revealed that he used to get prank calls from the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.

"I never met him, never shook his hand, but he found out the name I stayed in hotels under, so it didn't matter where I was, he'd ring up do this kind of thing, like you did when you were 10, you know," Crowe told theguardian.com.

The Beat it hitmaker tragically died of cardiac arrest at the age of 50, but Crowe insisted the musician's sense of humour was still puerile towards the end of his life, when he would make the ridiculous jokes during the phone calls, even though it irritated the Hollywood star.

Crowe, who has sons Charles, 11, and eight-year-old Tennyson, added: "'Is Mr. Wall there? Is Mrs. Wall there? Are there any Walls there? Then what's holding the roof up? Ha ha.' You're supposed to grow out of doing that, right?"

He also told Guardian about threats from Al Qaeda in 2001. “I still really don’t know to this day what that was all about. All I know is, I arrived in LA, got to my hotel, as I’d done umpteen times before, started unpacking, and there was a knock at the door and a team of FBI guys wanted to sit down and discuss something with me. And then, for nearly two years, they were always around. I remember going to the Golden Globes and having, like, 16 security guys with me. I don’t even know why. They wouldn’t give me any details. And of course, people were like: ‘Look at him, he thinks he’s Elvis.’ And then one day they just weren’t there any more,” the star said in an interview.