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Why ‘Purple Rain’ Led Prince to Turn His Back on the Superstardom He’d Manifested
Forty years ago today, Prince launched 'Purple Rain,' the project that vaulted him to megastardom. But unlike the film, it did not have a happy ending.
And look, he can shred on guitar too!” That album’s slow build from its October 1982 release set the stage for “Purple Rain,” thanks to video play and hard touring, the pressures of which would inform the inter-band conflicts featured in the film — not to mention the blazing rock music he would adapt for this phase of his career, and which brought him to mainstream white audiences. But rather than embracing that fame — to which he’d dedicated his and many others’ lives pursuing — Prince began rejecting it almost as soon as it was his, with odd statements and behavior, meandering onstage speeches about religion, thuggish activity from his bodyguards, a fake retirement from concerts, and not least being the only major celebrity to decline an invitation to take part in the all-star charity single “We Are the World.” He capped it all off, less than a year after “Purple Rain”’s release, by dropping “Around the World in a Day,” a new album that almost seemed designed to alienate as many fans as possible. Rather than a traditional awards-show saunter down the aisle, Prince was led to the stage in bulldozer fashion by one of those same bodyguards — the 6’8” Chick Huntsberry, who also appears in “Purple Rain” — and, by way of an acceptance speech, said only, “All thanks to God, goodnight.” The display did not endear him to the caustic British tabloid press, which reported that he was heard muttering as he left the country that he should have been “showed more respect.”
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