9 Ridiculous Prince Stories That (Probably) Won’t Be in His Memoir
During a pop-up concert in New York last night, Prince officially announced he’s writing a memoir. Slated for a 2017 release, the book — tentatively titled The Beautiful Ones — will reportedly cover the musical icon’s life from his earliest memories to his Super Bowl halftime show in 2007. And good god man, we couldn’t possibly be more excited.
It’s not just that Prince is one of our greatest living artists, not just that he’s an eccentric and at times elusive genius who can be engrossingly verbose when he wants to be, but also that he has a knack for leaving a trail of bizarre, implausible, mystique-building stories in his wake. Sorry, Bill Murray, but as far as random encounters go, there ain’t nobody better than The Purple One.
Take, for example, the nine celebrity-told Prince stories we’ve gathered below. Each of them is hilarious and remarkable in their own right, and yet we’re willing to bet that His Royal Badness himself recalls exactly zero of them. Which begs the question: how mind-blowing are the stories that Prince deems worthy to appear in his own book going to be? We are literally aching with anticipation to find out.
1. Pick-Up Ball with Charlie Wilson
No introduction necessary. An all-time great clip from an all-time great show. Chappelle’s impression eventually became so popular, Prince wound up using a photo of it as cover art in 2013.
2. After-Partying with Dave Chappelle
A couple of weeks after that infamous episode of Chappelle’s Show aired, Chappelle and his co-writer Neal Brennan wound up hanging out with Prince in his hotel room, where he got in on the joke by ordering them pancakes from room service.
3. Giving Kevin Smith the Runaround
In the summer of 2001, Prince hired director Kevin Smith to shoot a documentary about him that eventually fell through. Here, Smith recounts the entire peculiar, amusing tale.
4. Replacing Questlove with ‘Finding Nemo’
If you displease Prince on the turntables, he’ll have zero qualms about replacing you with a Pixar movie.
5. The Greatest Roller Skates Ever
Questlove told this story in much greater detail in his book, but it’s still worth hearing again here.
6. Taking the Stage at SNL40
Dan Aykroyd, Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, Michael Bolton, the B-52’s, Bill Murray and Elvis Costello? They’re all just warm-up acts when the High Priest of Pop is in the room.
7. Embarrassing Jimmy Fallon at MSG
The Purple One has a knack for disappearing at unexpected moments. In this case, he left Jimmy Fallon behind awkwardly dancing in front of a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden.
8. Chris Cornell’s Hotel Run-In
Soundgarden’s frontman hasn’t actually met Prince, but he did have this rather awkward encounter with him at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
9. He’s a Huge New Girl Fan
The story about Prince on the set of New Girl above is charming enough, but what’s truly crazy is how he wound up on the show in the first place. According to the sitcom’s executive producer Brett Baer, Prince contacted Zooey Deschanel out of the blue to profess his love for New Girl and inquire about making a cameo to help Nick and Jess, the show’s main couple, with their relationship. That’s right: Prince is a TV shipper. You’ve now heard it all.
