How One Small Religion Changed Prince

 

By Candida Moss

His music still dripped with lust, but in his personal life Prince’s conversion to a Jehovah’s Witness was a dramatic one.

The world is shocked by the sudden death of Prince at the young age of 57. As we come to terms with his passing we also face a new realization: that the artist responsible for some of the most powerfully seductive songs of the 20th century died a deeply religious man. One of his generation’s greatest artists—the man responsible for songs like “Sexy MF” and “Jack U Off”—died a fervent member of a marginalized and often derided sect.

In some ways Prince was always religious. He was raised a Seventh-day Adventist and frequently attended an African-American congregation in Glendale City. He claimed as a child, and maintained until his death, that an angel had cured him of epilepsy. It was only in 2001, though, that he became a Jehovah’s Witness.

His conversion was inspired by a two-year conversation with songwriter-bassist Larry Graham (of Sly and the Family Stone fame). Prince described it more as an awakening than a conversion, likening his experience to that of Neo in The Matrix. But Prince surely behaved like a convert: his religion permeated every aspect of his life. He not only attended meetings at a local Kingdom Hall, he occasionally knocked on doors proselytizing to others. A Jewish couple in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, once reported that they found Prince on their doorstep clutching a Bible.

It was a moment that revolutionized his worldview. He gave up drugs and became vegan. Even his notorious sexuality appeared to have been subtly augmented by his conversion. He was a famous ladies’ man with a penchant for beautiful women but since separating from his wife Manuela Testolini in 2006 he was—in keeping with the beliefs of his church—a bachelor. If he engaged in the sexual conquests typical of people in his professional position, he no longer flaunted. 

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Source: The Daily Beast