00:00Prince's 11 Surprising Facts You Didn't Know.
00:02In 1958, Prince Rogers Nelson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
00:07His most successful film was Purple Rain, released in 1984.
00:12The real name of Prince was Prince.
00:14A son of two musicians, Prince Rogers Nelson was named after the jazz combo of his father.
00:19His religion was Jehovah's Witnesses.
00:21Prince, baptized in 2001, was a devout Jehovah's Witness who went door-to-door.
00:27A woman in Eden Prairie, Minnesota opened her door to discover the famously shy artist and his bassist,
00:33former Sly and the Family Stone member Larry Graham.
00:36Cool, cool, cool.
00:38He wants to use my house for a set.
00:40I'm glad.
00:41Demolish the whole thing.
00:43The woman gushed to the Star Tribune.
00:45Then they start talking about Jehovah's Witnesses.
00:48I say, you've walked into a Jewish household, and this isn't something I'm interested in.
00:53Then Larry Graham pulls out his little Bible and starts reading scriptures about being Jewish in the land of Israel.
00:59Many of Prince's hit songs were written for other artists.
01:02Prince composed several hundred songs for himself as well as for other artists, including Manic Monday for the Bangles,
01:09I Feel For You for Shaka Khan, and Nothing Compares to You for Sinead O'Connor.
01:13There was actually a name associated with Prince's symbol.
01:16Prince used that weird symbol called Love Symbol No. 2, even though the world called him either the artist or
01:22the artist formerly known as Prince.
01:24It was copyrighted in 1997, but when Prince's contract with Warner Brothers expired on December 31, 1999,
01:32he announced that he was reclaiming his given name.
01:34The artist was given his very own color purple by Pantone in 2017.
01:38In partnership with Prince's estate, Pantone created a royal shade of purple in honor of him a little over a
01:44year after his death.
01:45It is appropriately called Love Symbol No. 2.
01:48It was inspired by a Yamaha piano the musician planned to take on tour.
01:53According to Troy Carter, an advisor to Prince's estate, the color purple symbolizes who Prince was and will always be.
01:59A lawsuit was filed against Prince by his sister.
02:02Lorna Nelson sued Prince in 1987, claiming that she wrote the lyrics to You Got The Look, a song with
02:08Sheena Easton from Sinead Times.
02:11The court sided with Prince in 1989.
02:13A vice president's wife was offended by his remarks.
02:16Tipper Gore, then wife of Al Gore, bought Purple Rain's soundtrack for her then 11-year-old daughter in 1984,
02:23and was horrified.
02:25Tipper became enraged over the lyrics of Darling Nikki, a song that references masturbation.
02:30In 1985, Gore formed the Parents Music Resource Center to pressure the recording industry to adopt a rating system like
02:37the one used in Hollywood.
02:38It is to Prince's credit that he didn't oppose the label system and released a clean version of explicit albums.
02:44A promotional tip was given to him by Willy Wonka.
02:47Universal hit 14 purple tickets inside Prince's album 3,121 in 2006, 7 in the U.S. and 7 internationally.
02:56Prince's Los Angeles home hosted a private performance for fans who found purple tickets.
03:01Prince held the number one spot simultaneously for film, single, and album during one week in 1984.
03:08Purple Rain was the biggest hit at the box office during the week of July 27, 1984.
03:14A song from the soundtrack, When Dove's Cry, was the top-selling single that same week.
03:19On SNL, he made history, although not necessarily in a positive manner.
03:24In Prince's first appearance on Saturday Night Live, he sang the line,
03:28Fightin' war is a such a effing bore.
03:31At the time, it went unnoticed, but in the closing segment, Charles Rockett said,
03:35I would like to know who did it.
03:37The F-bomb was dropped twice in this episode of Saturday Night Live.
03:41After experiencing a spiritual epiphany, he cancelled the release of his album.
03:45Just days before the Black album was scheduled to be released in 1987, Prince cancelled the release.
03:52According to some reports, the musician reached this decision following a spiritual epiphany.
03:57Other reports indicate that he knew it would fail due to an early experience with the drug ecstasy.
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