When two music legends finally met, no one expected karate to be involved — least of all The King himself.

Back in the ear­ly 1970s, Elvis Pres­ley was deep into rehearsals at RCA Stu­dios in Hol­ly­wood. Right next door? The Beach Boys’ Bri­an Wil­son, who was work­ing on a track that just so hap­pened to fea­ture leg­endary gui­tarist James Bur­ton. What hap­pened next has become one of the most awk­ward (and hilar­i­ous) celebri­ty encoun­ters ever—and with Wilson’s pass­ing at age 82, the sto­ry has resur­faced in full.

Speak­ing dur­ing Elvis’ 85th birth­day cel­e­bra­tion at Grace­land, Bur­ton shared the bizarre tale:

“I walked into the big stu­dio and Bri­an Wil­son was in there mix­ing a record that I played on. And he said, ‘Whatcha doing here man?’ [I said,] ‘I’m in the next room with Elvis rehears­ing.’ He said, ‘Oh! Please, please take me to meet Elvis.’ I took him in and he walked up to Elvis and was just look­ing at him. And Elvis stuck his hand out to shake hands and he couldn’t move.”

Mem­phis Mafia mem­ber Jer­ry Schilling also recalled the sur­re­al moment:

“Elvis always prid­ed him­self on our secu­ri­ty. There was secu­ri­ty at the stu­dio as well. This big, over­weight, beard­ed guy came into the stu­dio and went right up to Elvis and went, ‘Hi Elvis, I’m Bri­an’. And Elvis was very upset with us think­ing, ‘How did this guy get in here and who is he?’ So Bri­an said, ‘I’m record­ing next door. Would you come over and lis­ten?’ And Elvis looked at us; it’s almost in spite of us since this guy had got­ten through. He said, ‘Yeah, I’ll go over’.”

But it was Bri­an Wil­son him­self who gave the most chaot­ic detail of the encounter when he retold the moment years lat­er on The Tonight Show Star­ring Jim­my Fal­lon.

“I said Elvis, could you come across the way and lis­ten to what we’re doing, and he goes ‘sure’.
Then I went like this! [mim­ics karate chop from him on Elvis’ arm and then from Elvis on his] ‘Karate chop!’. I knew he knew karate and he karate chopped my arm so hard and goes ‘I’m leav­ing! I’m leav­ing!’ And that was it.”

Bri­an Wil­son, who cre­at­ed some of the most beloved music of the 20th cen­tu­ry, may have had one of the short­est and strangest celebri­ty run-ins in rock his­to­ry.

And in true Elvis fash­ion — he left the build­ing.