Prince&Therevelation

Prince &The Revelation Yes, the most sexually charged artist in music became Jehovah'sa Witness. He would flip-flop on homosexuality, proselytize door to door and reveal his complicated and personal conflicts along the way

BY CLAIRE HOFF M AN

WENDY MELVOIN AND LISA COLEMAN WERE By the early '8os, with the release of three childhood friends, lovers and founding consecutive albums — Dirty Mind, Controversy members of Prince's Revolution band. If Prince and 1999 — adherence to the faith of his had musicala family, they were it. So when childhood seemed to be behind him. Prince wore the pair tried to put together Revolutiona makeup and heels and performed in unbuttoned tour in 2000, they were hopeful, they told blouses. His lyrics pushed the boundaries of Minneapolis' Star Tribune in 2004, that their gender and sexual propriety. His song "Darling former bandleader would say yes. He didn't. Nikki" was so raunchy that inspiredit Tipper "He declined because of my homosexuality and Gore to start Parents Music Resource Center, a the fact I'm half-Jewish," said Melvoin. She was Washington, D.C.-based group that lobbied for told he wanted her to give pressa conference greater oversight of the music industry. denouncing her homosexuality and announcing Still, Prince kept God in the picture. that she was converting to Jehovah. "I was like: I "Controversy" includes The Lord's Prayer, and guess we'll never hear from him again." "1999" narrates judgmenta day where life is But just six years later, she stood beside just party,a but parties weren't meant to last. Prince onstage in London, playing for millions "He created cosmologya and spirituala outlook of viewers at an awards show. In matching that made sense to him," says Touré, author of white suits, Melvoin and Prince hammered the Prince biography I Would Die 4 U. "His way shoulder to shoulder on their guitars, him of explaining that great blessing to himself was lustily singing "Purple Rain." Coleman was on that he was blessed by God, he was anointed. His piano. The early acceptance of the gay couple work and his creative life was proof of God and — and then the rejection and acceptance all God working through him." over again — is an example of the puzzling Prince was introduced to the faith by Larry contradiction that Prince acted out in his Graham, the bassist for Sly & The Family Stone. attitudes toward sexuality and religion. (Michael Jackson, Venus and Serena Williams, For almost 40 years, Prince has been the Top: Prince onstage with Sly & The Family Stone's Graham, and The Notorious B.I.G. were all raised as who helped turn Prince on to the Jehovah's Witnesses in

embodiment of brazen sexuality, crooning Witnesses.) He described this transition of faith 2001. Bottom: The Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in about the many positions with which he would Minnetonka, Minn., where Prince was a congregant. to me when interviewedI him in 2008 for The please himself, and you. His music has been a New Yorker as less conversiona and more of a celebration of the paganistic pursuit of pleasure. he didn't believe in anything," says his friend realization, like Neo in The Matrix. "The more he RWISSIOY. SETL 5T Yet, Prince was no pagan, not exactly. And and collaborator, Sheila E. "But then he became said, the more realizedI the truth," said Prince. during the last decade or so, heif knocked on a Witness, and felt,I for him, that believing in While in Prince's telling this new religious your door, he was more likely to tell you about something was better than nothing." commitment was simply questiona of hearing God than invite you out to party. Fifteen years Prince was raised chaoticin a home, but the truth, the years leading up to wereit ago, when he committed himself to the Jehovah's his parents were members of the Seventh tumultuous. He changed his name symbol.to a Witnesses, Prince's fans were confused: How Day Adventists, another socially conservative He married for the first time in early 1996. His do you reconcile your hedonic icon rubberin a Christian group. "When you're talking about son, Boy Gregory, was born eight months later, thong with faitha that doesn't just frown upon the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh Day but died within weeka from rarea disease. He A L L : W A T T PE A R C E . 0 2 0 1 6 L gay marriage but prohibits oral and anal sex? Adventists, they share lota of the same core was divorced in 1999 and he remarried in 2001. Like everything else in his life, Prince did beliefs," says Professor Sally Barringer Gordon, At the end of 2001, Prince released his 24th the divine his own way, and as much as sex who teaches religion and law at the University album, The Rainbow Children, recounting an and pleasure, God and retribution have been a of Pennsylvania. "That we are working toward apocalyptic/utopian sort of happening. In constant in the landscape of Prince's music. the end of time, that salvation is the key effort its review, Rolling Stone referred to Prince as "When firstI met him he believed in God, but for every human being, and that bringing souls the "Freak in the Pulpit." He cut numbera of B O B BE R G / G E T T Y IW A G E after that there was timea when seemedit like to God is the most important thing." songs from his repertoire that he deemed too

to touch him, acknowledge directly behind Prince at the that cool? Hey, man, that (Billboard, 2014) • "I MOVED held at the Tunnel nightclub. him,speak to him or look awards. We were like,'This was unbelievable!' He kept TO New York to become Prince came to the afterparty. at him directly in the eye.' is going to be fun.' Every time turning around and looking a fashion photographer. He was sitting in bootha by And we're like,'Are you someone won something, at me. We were bugging In 1995 or '96, the Venus himself with four guards in kiddin' me?' Here was their I'd tap him on the shoulder him the whole time." — Awards, which drew every front of him.The party had big mistake:They sat us [and say],'Prince, man, isn't Night Ranger's Jack Blades designer and model, were been going on for an hour and

50 BILLBOARD I MAY 7, 2016