21 things you didn't know about Prince

Prince is dead. You already knew that, but I have to write it down again to be sure it's real. Prince is mine, well, a little bit. He was first and foremost my brother's, but he played it so often and so loud that I had to join in.

I did everything for Prince. I faked fainting scenes during concerts in the hope that I would be carried backstage, that Prince would see me and realize that that Susannah Hoffs was actually a ridiculous idea and that I should join the tour from then on.

I also hypnotized the school band of the Sint Willibordcollege so much that they offered me to sing a few songs during a performance. Of course, it became ‘When You Were Mine’, because once I became Mrs. Prince.

When our dog died, I cried myself to sleep with the photo of the dog on my chest and ‘Crazy You’ from his first album (on which he plays all 28 instruments himself, just so you know) on repeat. Anyway. Prince and I, I and Prince. One thing is for sure. That coming together will not happen again.

“I faked fainting scenes during concerts in the hope that I would be carried backstage”

To be a bit useful and in between that crazy feeling of sadness you have when someone you don't know but who has been with you your whole life dies, I made a list. Of 21 things you probably didn't know about Prince. I certainly didn't. Even I.

1. Prince wrote his first song when he was 7. Okay, back then I was still reading ‘There Comes Bianca on Horseback’ and other literary masterpieces. But Prince already made a song called ‘Funk Machine’.

2. Prince was a fan of Joni Mitchell (he also refers to her in his song ‘The Ballad of Dorothy Parker’: ‘and it was Joni singing’). He wrote her tons of letters, all in that typical Prince style with U instead of you and hearts, which made Joni's record label think they were dealing with a little weirdo...

3. When he was 10, his stepfather put him on stage with James Brown and he kept dancing until Brown's bodyguard personally removed him.

4. He was so poor for a while that he stood outside McDonald's just to sniff the smell of the food there.

5. In the music videos for ‘1999’ and ‘Little Red Corvette’, there was so much smoke that many people on set got massive diarrhea.

6. Speaking of those music videos. Prince directed all of them himself. Sometimes the record label hired a director, but Prince would park them outside with a stack of magazines like Larry Williams for the ‘When Doves Cry’ video.

7. By the way, speaking of ‘When Doves Cry’; Prince is, along with the Beatles, the only artist to have an album, a single, and a movie all at number 1 at the same time.

8. His favorite meal was the combination of spaghetti and orange juice.

9. During ‘Purple Rain’, the movie, he asked Apollonia to keep her marriage a secret so that everyone would really think they were in a relationship. While he was actually waiting for me. We kept that a secret too.

10. Prince played guitar on Madonna's ‘Like a Prayer’.

11. Michael Jackson wrote ‘Bad’ with the idea that he would sing it as a duet with Prince.

12. You could say that the marriage between Prince and Mayte was somewhat arranged. Mayte's mother sent Prince old-fashioned video tapes (those were the nineties) of Mayte who apparently could belly dance incredibly well.

13. Speaking of that belly dancing; Prince found it so damn seductive that he sent her music and she would respond with video tapes of her dancing to his music.

14. That went on until Mayte turned 18 and they were officially allowed to be together.

“While he was actually waiting for me. We kept that a secret too”

15. Prince became a Jehovah's Witness in 1997 and wrote much less about sex and removed a lot of sexually explicit material. I must say I kind of lost interest then.

16. Prince's first child died a week after birth.

17. Even when Prince produced less music in the mid-nineties, he kept the Paisley Park complex. It cost him five hundred thousand dollars a year, but just in case.

18. Those Paisley Park Studios also had ten people on catering staff. And tailors. And directors. Just in case they would shoot a video.

19. After his death, he fills the entire top 10 of the American iTunes Chart.

20. During the Batman period, Prince was so obsessed with Kim Basinger that he made an album with her. However, that was never released because while she was incredibly beautiful and sexy and divine, you wouldn't go to her for good singing.

21. And yes, his name is really Prince. Prince Roger Nelson to be exact.