Facts About Prince That Show Why He's True Music Royalty

After the star’s death, some of his close friends sat down with GQ to share their best stories about him. Rapper and dancer Cat Glover revealed, for instance, “Prince was never an eater. He would usually smell his food. Literally. I never really seen Prince eat.” That said, background vocalist Jill Jones said, “Prince did the cooking. Scrambled eggs. He put curry [powder] and a little bit of Cheddar cheese in them. It was really good, actually.” Dancer Misty Copeland agreed, saying, “Yeah, he has made me scrambled eggs. Breakfast was his forte. He liked to use a lot of seasoning... [His eggs] were delicious.”

In the early ’00s, the musician joined the Jehovah’s Witness faith, and he adhered to the church’s principles devoutly. This included governing the language that he’d allow to be spoken within his recording studio. Prince’s friend James Lundstrom revealed that the singer was very serious about his “cuss bucket.” In 2017 Lundstrom recalled to the BBC, “He didn’t want to dishonor the faith. He wasn’t joking. You had to pay in cash in the bucket. He would charge you between three and ten dollars per swear word.”

While Prince may have used his real first name on his way to fame, he wasn’t afraid of a pseudonym or two. For instance, when writing songs, he would sometimes use pen names including Jamie Starr, Joey Coco, and Alexander Nevermind. And when Prince traveled, he also took on a new name: Peter Bravestrong. The star used this on-the-road pseudonym to label the luggage that he took with him to his last concert in Atlanta, Georgia. Investigators later found the Bravestrong suitcase at the star’s Chanhassen, Minnesota, home and recording studio.

Prince made his on-screen acting debut in the movie Purple Rain. Starring in the role of “The Kid,” the part was – perhaps unsurprisingly – based on the singer himself. And although the 1984 rock musical did indeed feature some truths about the star and his life, one thing about his performance was phony. Believe it or not, but the bouffant hairstyle that he sported during one period of production was actually a wig. Earl Jones, the singer’s hairstylist, confirmed that the musician had worn a wig for the movie’s re-shoots, as he had cut and dyed his hair after filming had originally ended.

Five days before Prince’s death on April 21, 2016, music lovers everywhere celebrated Record Store Day by visiting their local independent sellers and picking up new albums. Prince did the same, too, at the Minneapolis music emporium Electric Fetus. The pop star bought six CDs from Electric Fetus’ collection: Joni Mitchell’s Hejira, Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book, Swan Silvertones’ Inspirational Gospel Classics, the Chambers Brothers’ The Time Has Come, Santana’s Santana IV and Missing Persons’ The Best of Missing Person.

Even before Prince died, he had a reputation for being a perfectionist. After the musician’s passing, though, those who worked with him revealed that the star achieved his vision ruthlessly at times. Michael B. Nelson – who had been a trombone player in Prince’s backing band New Power Generation – somewhat attested to this fact when he explained to Rolling Stone that the singer “did like to push the band with fear.”

Michael B. Nelson recalled a chilling example of Prince’s mean streak. Apparently, the trombone player had missed a note while he had been on tour with the star in 1993. Then, the following evening, Prince had reportedly walked toward Nelson when it came time to go for the same note again and proceeded to hold his gun-shaped microphone to the musician’s head while he played the solo. Nelson added, “It wasn’t showbiz at that point. It was, ‘Don’t you ever do that again.’”

CNN commentator and Prince’s buddy Van Jones revealed after the star’s death that Prince was “helping every day of his life” through his charity and good deeds. In an example of the latter, Jones said that Prince had frantically called him when he had heard that Lauryn Hill “had gotten into some trouble.” “His first thing he wanted to know was where were her kids and what he could do to help,” Jones concluded.

Five months after Prince’s death, his former flame Charlene Friend talked about his strange sleeping habits. Friend told People that her ex didn’t rise and rest like the average adult. Instead, she said, “He would sometimes stay up for five days at a time without sleep, food, or even water, going nonstop back and forth to the studio.” When Prince did eventually sleep, Friend claimed, he would crank up the thermostat to 80 degrees, put aluminum foil over the windows, and shake all night long.

From his Purple Rain Tour onward, Prince reportedly dealt with pain — specifically in his hips. But the musician supposedly couldn’t remedy the problem with a double hip replacement, as Jehovah’s Witnesses are not permitted to have the blood transfusions that are required with such surgery. Instead, he seemingly relied on opioids to dull the ache in his joints. And after Prince’s passing, many of the singer’s friends and associates came out and confirmed that the star suffered from an addiction to prescription medication.

Prince’s employees called in Dr. Howard Kornfeld to try to help Prince with his addiction in the days leading up to his death. Dr. Kornfeld sent his son Andrew, who was studying medicine at the time. Andrew didn’t get the chance to speak to Prince about his addiction, however. Instead, he arrived at the Minnesota residence to find the star seemingly lifeless on the floor. The visitor subsequently made a call to 911.

Prince famously refused to own a smartphone, choosing instead to keep in touch through email and landline calls. Owing to this quirk, one Carver County Sheriff’s deputy said that he “regretted not taking the computer by [Prince’s] bedside” after the singer's death. The deputy said, “I believed that this contained conversations between his staff and [him] about medications, possibly.” Later, the authorities also said that many of the star’s emails disappeared.

At the cremation ceremony held for the star on April 23, 2016, close friends and family didn’t actually hear one of his hits. Instead, the assembled mourners listened to the track “Comeback,” which Prince had written in the wake of a personal tragedy. In 1996 he and his then-wife Mayte García welcomed a son, Amiir, who passed away only days after his birth. The star partly worked through his grief by penning the song. Some fans may have heard the track on The Truth — an album that originally saw a limited release in 1998.

Despite having an estate worth an incredible $156 million, Prince did not have a will in place. That's why it took six years to settle his estate after he passed. In the end, the Minnesota First Judicial District ruled that the cash left behind by Prince should be divided up equally between Prince Legacy LLC and Prince OAT Holdings LLC. Prince had no spouse or children at the time of his death, so his official heirs were six half-siblings.

In the same year that Prince died, he ended up reigning as America’s top-selling album artist. The star sold in excess of 2.2 million records after he passed away. That feat could be partly attributed to the fact that Prince’s music wasn’t available on streaming platforms at the time, leaving fans to purchase physical or downloadable copies of his work instead. When Prince's tracks did finally appear on streaming platforms in February 2017, the musician’s back catalog received a stunning 17 million plays in just seven days.

Friend Maya Washington revealed to GQ that Prince had begun discussing the possibility of a Paisley Park-centric reality show with Netflix. Essence later confirmed Washington’s statement, with a representative for Netflix saying, “We did have discussions about [a Paisley Park show], but sadly for all of us it did not come to fruition prior to [Prince’s] passing.

Prince once stored all of his most prized recordings in a vault. Then, after his death, the secure container – which held everything from unreleased songs to rehearsal tapes and concert clips – was drilled open. And since 2016, new songs have trickled out from the artist’s meticulously kept archive. After all, there’s no shortage of stuff in the archive. David Z, one of Prince’s engineers, recalled the star’s work ethic to the BBC, saying that the singer would lay down two songs a day.

Some of the music contained within Prince’s vault has already been released to the public. For instance, in 2016, a turn-of-the-millennium track called “Moonbeam Levels” appeared on the compilation album Prince 4Ever. Yet there’s so much unreleased Prince music to get through that we may not get to hear all of it. Paisley Park staffer Scott LeGere has said, for example, “[The vault] probably won’t be tapped out in our lifetime.”

Some of the details that have emerged about Prince in his final days may make it seem as though his life came to a sad, lonely end. That probably isn’t the case, though, as by many accounts the singer seemed to be living happily — albeit privately — at Paisley Park. And in addition to the musician’s record-store spree just days before his death, fans also spotted him riding around a nearby mall.

One of Prince’s protégées Judith Hill remembered that the superstar found joy in the little things. She recalled his love for animated movies — and his desire to watch Zootopia. “He loved those films,” she told The New York Times. “I was going to pull it up on my phone. He said, ‘No, no, no, not here. We’re going to pick a special time and place to watch that.’” He also played table tennis with finesse and loved to cook meals for his friends.

Carlos Boozer was, for a moment, left regretting his decision to rent his West Hollywood mansion to Prince back in 2004. The former NBA star actually considered filing a lawsuit after the musician completely redecorated the property in true Prince style. But Prince restored the home back to its original tone after he moved out. And because Prince had stayed in the house, Boozer was later to sell the property for a profit of $4 million.

Prince was just as idiosyncratic when it came to kitting out his own house. One of the guest bedrooms in the star’s famously purple Paisley Park home boasted a two-foot yellow gnome adorned with butterflies. Strangely enough, the statue was initially kept in the living room but had to be moved after spooking out visitors.

Prince’s unusual tastes also extended to his properties abroad. The star’s house in Marbella, Spain, boasted sea views and was also equipped with a hair salon. However, only the man himself was allowed to use it. Even ex-wife Mayte was forced to go elsewhere every time she wanted a trim.

Prince’s extravagant lifestyle as an adult was in stark contrast to his experiences growing up in a poor family. In fact, the star was so impoverished in his youth that he regularly stood outside McDonald’s. But it wasn’t to beg for money for food; he just wanted to inhale the aroma of the restaurant’s Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets.

An interview with Prince was the stuff of dreams for most music journalists. However, it often became the stuff of nightmares thanks to the musician’s refusal to allow any electronic gadgets to record his words. He even insisted that journalists couldn’t jot down any notes because of how distracting he found it while talking.

Prince repeatedly spoke about how irritating he found society’s obsession with cell phones and technology. He also banned fans from taking footage of him during a show, kicking out anyone who broke the rule. In 2010 he told the Daily Mail, "The internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it... Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you."

Prince was famously anti-YouTube and anti-internet in general — as we've just seen. However, you may not know that he was also very much anti-Adobe Photoshop CS6. The star once reportedly took legal action, unsuccessfully, against its makers in order to stop fans from manipulating images of him using the software.

Prince famously performed with James Brown and Michael Jackson at a Los Angeles gig in 1983. However, that wasn’t the first time that he’d appeared alongside the soul legend. The Purple One briefly danced alongside Brown as a ten-year-old when his stepdad decided to lift him onto the stage during a show.

Although he once performed with Michael Jackson, it seems the love for his fellow artist stopped there. Most stars would consider an invitation to perform on a Jackson record a huge privilege, but not Prince. The musician couldn't get on board with the King of Pop’s "Bad." Prince told Chris Rock in 1997, “The first line of that song is 'your butt is mine.' Then I said, ‘Who’s going to sing that to who? Because you sure aren’t singing that to me and I sure ain’t singing that to you.'"

Prince may have worked with the backing band The Time, but he didn’t actually believe in the concept of time itself. In 1999 he told a Dutch TV reporter that he’d stopped celebrating birthdays. And in a 2011 interview with The Guardian, he claimed that “time is a mind construct… it’s not real.”

One Prince fan got the shock of her life when the star turned up on her doorstep unannounced in 2001. Unfortunately for Minneapolis resident Rochelle, the Purple One wasn’t there for musical reasons. Instead, he was attempting to spread the word of his Jehovah’s Witness faith as a door-to-door evangelist. "It was so bizarre, you would have just laughed," Rochelle told the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune.

“Eligible bachelor seeks the most beautiful girl in the world to spend the holidays with.” Apparently, Prince put this personal ad out ahead of the release of the music video for "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World." It's said that 50,000 people responded to the ad — and a lucky few got to be featured in the video, too.

Prince met the first love of his life after watching a videotape. Longtime Prince fan Mayte Garcia first caught his attention with footage of a belly dancing performance her parents sent to the star when she was still a teenager. After meeting in person, Prince asked her to perform on his Diamonds and Pearls tour. The pair later married in 1996 — on Valentine’s Day, no less — but divorced in 2000.

Before settling down with Garcia, Prince generally kept the public in the dark about his romantic relationships. In fact, he even made his Purple Rain co-star Apollonia Kotero keep her very own marriage hushed up. The reason? To make fans believe that she was available and to "better sell her image as a vixen," according to Grantland.

Renowned for exploring his sexuality, Prince created a female alter ego named Camille during the recording of the seminal Sign ‘O’ The Times. He later recorded a whole album under the pseudonym, using studio trickery to distort his voice. The star canceled the record mere weeks before it was due to be released in 1986... but Third Man Records has announced that it plans to release the record in 2023.

The Camille album wasn’t the only Prince recording that got shelved at the last minute. In 1987 the star canceled The Black Album just a week before it was due to hit stores after becoming convinced it was evil. However, the LP finally got a commercial release seven years later — albeit in limited numbers. In 2016, though, the album dropped exclusively to Tidal.

Director Kevin Smith and Prince wouldn’t appear to be the likeliest of bedfellows. But the pair very nearly worked together on a film based on the Purple One’s 2001 LP, The Rainbow Children. The director said he pulled out when he realized the movie would essentially be little more than a Jehovah’s Witnesses recruitment video.

Sticking with Smith, the director once revealed how Prince often liked to talk in riddles during their early conversations about the project. “If a big snake gives birth to a little snake, what is that little snake going to grow up to be?” was just one example. Oh, and the answer was a big snake, apparently. The point was, "You gotta know who your father is."

Prince was often hailed as a real-life Willy Wonka – even more so when he staged his very own golden ticket contest, just like the fictional reclusive chocolate factory owner. In 2006 the musician placed purple tickets within 14 copies of his latest album. The lucky recipients were then treated to a private-ish show at Paisley Park.

That wasn’t the only gimmick that Prince used when it came to live performances. In 2006 he decided to charge fans the figure of £31.21 ($39) for U.K. shows promoting his album titled 3121. The record itself was apparently named in honor of the address of the LA residence where it was recorded. Prince fans certainly got a great deal that day!