Can we discuss Prince?

[Jesslfar]

I'm tagging brux and RajahMD in here.  Has anyone been reading all this to come out about Prince's death?

[Jesslfar]

This was in a suitcase the police found.

[Jesslfar]

I'm wondering why Prince had a floppy disk and cassette tape.

[RajahMD]

I haven't been keeping up with it. I'll read up on it later and come back with my thoughts.

[Jesslfar]

Apr 20, 2018 10:34:28 GMT -6 RajahMD said:

I haven't been keeping up with it. I'll read up on it later and come back with my thoughts.

It's official it was fentanyl but no one knows where he got it.  A doctor did prescribe his staff with pills to give prince including zofran and opiates but the only thing anyone was aware he took was vicodin that turned out to be fentanyl.

[Jesslfar]

I like his mix of expensive and cheap products. The mess is a bit much.

[brux]

I've been reading the docs all morning. The 57 page interview with Judith Hill and the interviews with the nurses and paramedics. I haven't yet read the interview with Kirk Johnson.

It's all so sad and also all so unsurprising. He was a private man who intentionally kept many parts of his life hidden. No one had a clue what was happening until it was too late.

[brux]

I was kind of taken aback by how messy parts of the home were.

[Jesslfar]

Apr 20, 2018 10:48:22 GMT -6 brux said:

I've been reading the docs all morning. The 57 page interview with Judith Hill and the interviews with the nurses and paramedics. I haven't yet read the interview with Kirk Johnson.

It's all so sad and also all so unsurprising. He was a private man who intentionally kept many parts of his life hidden. No one had a clue what was happening until it was too late.

Can you summarize the 57 page interview?  I've just been reading the articles that are coming out.

[Jesslfar]

Apr 20, 2018 10:48:42 GMT -6 brux said:

I was kind of taken aback by how messy parts of the home were.

Me too.  

[Leaf 🌱]

I’m sure @brienne has feelings about this.

[brux]

Apr 20, 2018 10:51:22 GMT -6 Jesslfar said:

Apr 20, 2018 10:48:22 GMT -6 brux said:

I've been reading the docs all morning. The 57 page interview with Judith Hill and the interviews with the nurses and paramedics. I haven't yet read the interview with Kirk Johnson.

It's all so sad and also all so unsurprising. He was a private man who intentionally kept many parts of his life hidden. No one had a clue what was happening until it was too late.

Can you summarize the 57 page interview?  I've just been reading the articles that are coming out.hold, please.

[brux]

My summary of the Judith Hill interview with investigators

It started with discussing the emergency plane landing. She came from LA to Mpls to fly with Prince on a private jet to Atlanta for his two concerts. She (strangely, IMO) stayed in a hotel in Mpls rather than at Paisley Park the night before they left to ATL.

He made a couple comments to her down in ATL about the good old days of music and how today just wasn't as good. He also commented to her after the 2nd show that he had a hard time staying awake during the show, which she thought was so odd because how can you get sleepy during a performance?

When the got on the plane to come back to Mpls, he told the flight attendant he wanted a meal (which I guess was also unlike him because he didn't eat a ton). The he kept "messing with" his carry on bag off and on, a few times, asking Judith if she needed a cough drop. He came back, and sat across from her on the plane eventually and looked like he fell asleep. She then heard spilling water, which startled her bc he fell asleep holding a water bottle and was spilling it on the floor. She knew something was wrong. She woke up Kirk (the "right hand man" and they both shouted to Prince and told the pilots something was wrong. His heart was beating but he wasn't beating much. Judith thought he was dead.

The plane landed in Iowa, paramedics came on the plane. They had to give Prince two doses of Narcan, which is unusual and aggressive (based on my reading of the paramedic interview). Kirk mentioned that Prince had taken one Percocet because Prince's hands hurt from playing on the piano. Paramedics said that can't be true because one Percocet wouldn't have done that.

At the hospital, no one really answered questions. They showed/found a Bayer bottle filled with unlabeled pills. The hospital sent it to the pharmacy to test, and it was Percocet. Prince told Judith that this all must've been because he accidentally mixed two different pills and said he wouldn't do it again. She was generally shocked that he took any prescription pills bc she had never seen him do that. Prince refused all tests in the hospital and promised Judith he'd see his doctor when he got home.

The next day, they fly back to Mpls. She goes to her hotel to shower and then goes to Paisley Park where they watch documentaries and she spends the night.

[brux]

Judith says that Prince never sleeps well, never sleeps through the night, always leaves the bedroom in the middle of the night, she assumes that he's on the computer.

Other interesting facts:
Prince didn't have a cell phone. He mainly used email to correspond, usually emailing people to ask if he could call and then he'd call from a landline. He used a desktop computer at home.

Prince didn't do recreational drugs but liked occasional shots of cognac.

Prince would take Judith out grocery shopping at 4 am or to Walgreens to buy Five Hour Energy drinks. He drank a ton of those.

Prince kept his master bathroom really tidy.  Just a bottle of Listerine on the counter.  So those pictures of the mess must've been a different bathroom.

Prince always covered his TV with a sheet when he wasn't using it.  And he always wore his tank top undershirts on inside out.  And he hated jeans and pants with pockets.

[brux]

From her interview, I got the sense that Prince kept his circle tight but also that he cycled through his circles of people, replacing one tight group with another tight group every few years.

Judith and other Paisley Park staff were shocked that Prince took any pills at all. They hadn't suspected it. But I read that Prince's ex-wife Manuela Testolini told investigators that Prince had issues with opioids for years.

[Deleted]

A lot of it has been tough to read honestly. His struggle is like so many in our country right now with opioids.

I feel like if anyone were to know anything deeper about the nature of his addiction and where the pills came from, it would be that Kirk Johnson guy. But he claims not to so? He acted weird I thought when reading the accounts of what happened on the plane. Him answering for Prince saying he was fine. Uhhhh no, dude. Your friend is not fucking fine. He just needed two shots of narcan. I'm thinking he was just in pure shock.

[Deleted]

I agree with brux - his need for almost total privacy contributed to his downfall. Had he let people in a little bit, maybe he could have gotten the help he needed that much sooner. It also sounds like he was very depressed, which makes me so sad.

It's all so tragic because there was a doctor on his way to discuss a treatment plan and to see that Prince got help right away, and it was too freaking late.

[Jesslfar]

Sinead O'Conner has given an interview saying she was aware Prince used hard drugs and she went to the authorities right after his death about it. She said he became violent while high also.

[willow]

Mayte is adamant in her memoir that she never saw Prince use any drugs when she was with him, but that she is aware it could have possibly been happening when she wasn't in his presence.

I have said it before but it doesn't shock me that he was abusing medication. He spent over 35 years working his ass off day and night, and barely ever slept (Mayte talks about that too, about how he often was up all hours working on his music). He put his body through hell during his shows, if you see a show from the early 80s, he was still as god-like in his performances in the 2000s (and was when I saw him perform). All of that takes such a toll on your body.


Relevant, I'm seeing the live Prince concert tonight. It was supposed to be tomorrow, since April 21 was the day he died, but the stupid Timberwolves are in the playoffs so that messed it up (I hate basketball with a passion) so it was rescheduled for tonight. I'm really looking forward to it. There is going to be never before seen video and music.