Prince was one of the most beloved musicians in the industry, but the love that so many artists felt for him wasn't always mutual. The legendary singer famously became more private in his later years, and he was never afraid to make his true feelings about another artist known.
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00:00While Prince is rightly remembered for his influential musical legacy, he was also famous
00:04for sometimes being temperamental, petty, and a bit of a diva.
00:07That all led to some deeply personal grudges.
00:10From rookie pop stars to longtime rivals, here are the celebrities Prince couldn't stand.
00:14A little thing like death couldn't stop Prince from sharing his views on music with the world.
00:19In October 2019, three years after his death, his memoir The Beautiful Ones was released.
00:24This wasn't just another straightforward rock star narrative.
00:27We're talking about Prince, after all.
00:29The book incorporates his cartoons, unseen photos, and handwritten notes alongside memories
00:33from his life written in his own personal code.
00:36One particularly incendiary passage comes when Prince notes,
00:39"...we need to tell music execs that they keep trying to ram Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran
00:43down our throats and we don't like it, no matter how many times they play it."
00:46This takedown must have been especially painful for Perry.
00:49Back in 2009, she tweeted about how Prince and his movie Purple Rain were career inspirations
00:54for her.
00:55And in the aftermath of Prince's death in 2016, she tweeted,
00:58"...and just like that, the world lost a lot of magic.
01:01Rest in peace, Prince.
01:02Thanks for giving us so much.
01:04What a way to ruin teenage dreams."
01:06Justin Timberlake's assertion that he was bringing sexy back in 2006 convinced a lot
01:11of people.
01:12The song was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks, and it won the Grammy
01:16for Best Dance Recording.
01:17But at least one person took issue with Timberlake's claim.
01:20During a performance at an Emmys afterparty in August 2006, Prince told the crowd,
01:24Whoever is claiming that they are bringing sexy back, sexy never left.
01:28Timberlake fired back at the 2007 Golden Globes by mocking Prince's height while accepting
01:33an award on his behalf.
01:34And then in February of that year, he directly called Prince out in his verse on the Timbaland
01:38song Give It To Me.
01:39Even after Prince's death, his fans had refused to let Timberlake off the hook.
01:43In 2018, they called him out for holding a listening party at Prince's estate, Paisley
01:47Park, which included alcohol, despite Prince's rules against drinking.
01:51Timberlake ultimately paid his respects, though.
01:53During a 2018 appearance on The Tonight Show, he called the late singer, quote,
01:56"...the pinnacle of musicianship."
01:58"...the GOAT of musicians."
02:02In the 1980s, Madonna and Prince were two of the biggest pop stars in the world.
02:06The two even dated for a couple months in 1985, but afterwards, they fell into a long-lasting
02:10pattern of verbal sparring.
02:12After their breakup, she reportedly screamed at him,
02:14"...how dare you dump me, don't you know who I am?"
02:17She also insulted Prince's height, his outfits, and his eating habits.
02:20They buried the hatchet long enough to record Love Song for her 1989 album Like a Prayer,
02:25and Prince also played guitar on two tracks.
02:27But in 1992, his competitive nature pushed him to top Madonna's $60 million record deal
02:31with their shared label, Warner Bros.
02:33He won that round, signing a contract worth an estimated $100 million, although he later
02:38fell out with the label in spectacular fashion.
02:40This feud ultimately mostly settled into run-of-the-mill bickering.
02:43In 2016, Prince's backup dancer, Kat Glover, revealed to GQ that Prince tried to persuade
02:48Madonna to star in his 1990 movie Graffiti Bridge, but that ultimately didn't work out
02:53because he couldn't deal with her.
02:55One meeting derailed into insulting each other's shoes.
02:57As Glover put it,
02:58"...this is what happens when you get two big egos in one room.
03:01It was jokey and serious.
03:03They're the same way."
03:04Most people have said something they'd like to take back, but most of us didn't say it
03:08to one of the most talented musicians in the world.
03:10Pink, however, does have that dubious honor.
03:13She and Prince met backstage in the late 90s when she was 19 and had just signed a record
03:17deal.
03:18Living up to her bold image, the rookie singer asked a legend to collaborate with her.
03:21Prince responded by asking if she owned her own masters, which are the original copies
03:25of an artist's songs.
03:26He spent the early 90s campaigning to get his back from Warner Bros., and they finally
03:30gave him the chance under a new deal that he signed in 2014.
03:34When Pink said no, he told her to come back when she did own them.
03:37Not one to take a slight lying down, she told him that he was, quote, a rude b----.
03:41However, she later realized that he was trying to teach her a lesson.
03:44When she appeared on the Australian radio show Fitzy & Whippa in 2016, she said,
03:49"'I loved him.
03:50I totally loved him.
03:51Prince is everybody's genius.
03:52The world lost a lot of sparkle this year, and it hurts my heart because I don't know
03:56what's going to replace it.'"
03:57"'He was and will be forever amazing.'"
04:03Despite how the saying goes, Prince did not consider imitation to be the sincerest form
04:07of flattery, as he was famously against other artists covering his songs.
04:11In a 2013 interview with Billboard, he specifically called out Maroon 5's cover of Kiss, which
04:16was included on a deluxe version of the band's 2012 album, Overexposed.
04:21According to Prince,
04:22"...why do we need to hear another cover of a song someone else did?
04:24Art is about building a new foundation, not just laying something on top of what's already
04:28there."
04:29In deference to musical royalty, Maroon 5 removed the song from iTunes and Spotify.
04:33Frontman Adam Levine didn't take the bar personally.
04:36In 2017, he explained to Howard Stern that he'd met Prince years before the Kiss spat.
04:41A mutual friend invited Prince to a casual party that Levine was hosting, which turned
04:45it from a relaxed jam session into a once-in-a-lifetime experience — one that ultimately migrated
04:49to Prince's house.
04:51Levine noted,
04:52"...my experiences with him were genuinely really beautiful and special."
04:55In 2014, Levine had another crack at a Prince song when he played Purple Rain live.
05:00Prince was apparently less annoyed about live covers of his songs, and he offered Levine
05:04the ultimate lukewarm praise by saying,
05:06"...you gettin' it."
05:07"...him saying that is basically like, yeah, exactly the highest praise you can get."
05:11Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne saw the funny side of being rejected by Prince.
05:15His band's encounter with the prickly purple one happened at the 2006 Brit Awards.
05:19Prince was scheduled to perform a set of four songs while reuniting with former Revolution
05:23bandmates Wendy and Lisa and Purple Rain singer Sheila E.
05:27The Flaming Lips were hanging around when Prince and his two security guards arrived
05:30and went to his dressing room.
05:31They worked up the courage to give Prince's bodyguard a stack of CDs to pass on to him.
05:35As Coyne recalled to The Independent,
05:37"...we were so thrilled at the possibility of him hearing our music.
05:40But at the end of the night, the bodyguard came and found us and handed all the CDs back.
05:45He said, Prince doesn't want these."
05:46Luckily, Coyne and his bandmates were able to keep the whole thing in perspective as
05:50they found the whole thing hilarious.
05:52As Coyne put it,
05:53"...we loved him so much for being too cool for us."
05:56In 2011, Prince officially debuted his anti-Kardashian stance.
06:00He invited Kim onstage during his Welcome to Tour and then immediately kicked her off
06:04when she refused to dance.
06:06A few years later, he doubled down on the hostile sentiment when he appeared on a 2014
06:10episode of New Girl.
06:11The episode featured a party at Prince's house where Jess, as played by Zooey Deschanel,
06:16gets some love advice, pancakes, and a makeover from the singer.
06:19Shortly after Prince's death, Deschanel appeared on Conan and discussed the Prince episode.
06:23No Prince party is complete without celebrities, and some members of the Kardashian family
06:27shot cameos for the episode.
06:29However, Prince put the record scratch on that.
06:32After finding out about the Kardashians' involvement, he had all the scripts and call
06:35sheets burned.
06:36"...and it turns out that someone from Prince's camp said, like, who are the celebrities?
06:42I hope it's not a Kardashian."
06:45Deschanel's co-star Lamorne Morris told a similar story on an episode of the Doug Loves
06:49Movies podcast, although he didn't mention the Kardashians by name.
06:53As he explained,
06:54"...Prince shows up early, so he's sitting in Video Village and he's watching the screen
06:57and he goes, what are the blank blanks doing here?
07:00They said, while they're in the show, they've been invited to a Prince party.
07:03He goes, they would never be invited to a Prince party."
07:06The crazy real-life story of funk singer Rick James includes a lot of hate aimed in Prince's
07:11direction.
07:12Both musicians released their first albums in 1978, but their rivalry really started
07:16two years later when James invited Prince to open up for him on his Fire It Up tour.
07:20It was dubbed the Battle of Funk, and it turned into a war.
07:24The two would reportedly watch each other's performances from the wings.
07:27James accused Prince of stealing his moves, his look, and his idea for a girl group.
07:32He claimed that the musicians in Prince's band were snobs, and that he once forced cognac
07:35down Prince's throat, making him cry.
07:38In his autobiography, James wrote that he started working for Eddie Murphy because he
07:41wanted to give the comedian a hit song and, quote, "...stick it in Prince's ear."
07:45In 1982, when Prince refused to sign his autograph for James' mother, it so angered James that
07:50he assaulted Prince.
07:51The Purple One definitively won the Battle of Funk, and not only with his music career.
07:56On the night of that fight in 1982, he met James' ex, Denise Matthews, who became Prince's
08:00girlfriend and protege under the stage name Vanity.
08:03Sinead O'Connor's 1990 version of the song Nothing Compares to You is so famous that
08:08many people don't even know it was written by Prince in 1984.
08:12Prince hated other artists covering his songs, let alone being more successful with them,
08:16and O'Connor is recalled having a very tense meeting with him.
08:19She told three separate interviewers that after her cover came out, Prince invited her
08:22to his house in Malibu and turned violent when she refused to become one of his protégés.
08:27She accused him of trying to punch her, and she also claimed that she had to run away
08:30from him at 5 a.m. and knock on the door of a neighboring house.
08:33"'We didn't get on very well.
08:35We tried to beat each other up."
08:36"'Really?'
08:37"'We didn't get on too well.'
08:38"'You tried to beat each other up?'
08:39"'Well, it was more he tried to beat me up and I was defending myself.'"
08:42And the details of this story get even weirder.
08:44When O'Connor was interviewed by the Carver Minnesota County Sheriff's Office following
08:48Prince's death, she claimed that Prince beat up the Revolution guitarist Wendy Melbourne
08:51and worshipped the devil, all under the influence of hard drugs.
08:55If there's one person more frank in his musical assessments than Prince was, it might just
09:00be Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.
09:02In 2016, Stones drummer Charlie Watts told The Guardian about the time that Prince opened
09:06up for them at the Los Angeles Coliseum during their 1981 American tour.
09:11Prince being Prince was wearing his trademark bikini bottoms.
09:14As Watts recalled,
09:15"'Mick Jagger and I both loved Prince's 1980 album Dirty Mind.
09:19Keith hated it, and we got him on our show.'
09:21Of course, being Prince, he duly went out in his knickers and our audience booed him
09:24off, which didn't deter me from liking him."
09:27Watts maintained his admiration for Prince, but Richards grew even more hostile.
09:31In 1988, he told the Los Angeles Times,
09:33"'I think he's very clever at manipulating the music business and the entertainment business.
09:37I think he's more into that than making music.
09:40I don't see much substance in anything he does.'"
09:42By the time Richards published his autobiography in 2010, he still hadn't warmed up.
09:46He called Prince overrated, mocked his height, and claimed that he insulted Stones fans with
09:50his presumptiveness.
09:52As he wrote,
09:53"'Prince has to find out what it means to be a prince.
09:55That's the trouble with conferring a title on yourself before you've proved it.
09:58He's a prince who thinks he's a king already.'"
10:01Only after Prince's death did Richards appear to mellow, as he tweeted,
10:04"'A unique talent, a true original.
10:06So sad, so sudden, and, I will add, a great guitar player.
10:10We are all going to miss him.'"