Charlie Murphy isn't the only celebrity with a colorful yarn about Prince. Granted, we admit that his epic tale of getting royally trounced at basketball by the singer — while decked out in full regalia and heels — is hard to beat. (And yes, Prince has confirmed it's true, though he confessed he didn't make that pancake breakfast himself.)
But anyway ...
Director Kevin Smith spoke at length about his own encounter with His Royal Badness during a speech at Kent State University in Ohio. What started as a routine business call to get a song clearance for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back turned into a weird week at Paisley Park making a movie that has yet to see the light of day.
After sitting around, impatiently staring at his phone waiting for Prince to call him back (don't worry, Kevin, Dave Grohl did it, too), they finally connected and Prince told him he'd been a big fan of his 1999 religious parody Dogma. They got to talking and Prince invited him to come to Minneapolis to shoot a documentary about his new album.
Right away, there were problems.
For one, Prince commanded the famously foul-mouthed Smith to quit it with the cussing. "He asked me, 'Can you make a movie without cursing in it?'" Smith replied, "Yeah, but why bother?"
Smith also didn't quite know what to make of the music icon's plan to incorporate religion into the film project. (This was the same guy who wrote Darling Nikki, after all.) But despite his misgivings, he ultimately went off to Paisley Park because "it's (expletive) Prince. I gotta go."
We'll let Smith pick up the story from here. It's on the long side at 30 minutes but well worth it. Go forth and learn why he pretended to keep shooting Prince even after running out of film stock, how he found out Prince had the whole joint wired for sound, the director's burning need to know whether Prince ever wore sneakers and where his workout clothes came from (that would be Nordstorm's boys department).
Warning: It's Kevin Smith we're talking about so there will be much swearing. (Not even Prince himself could put a stop to that.)
The story yielded one piece of good news: There could still be Prince material coming out for years because according to Smith, there are 50 fully-produced music videos for songs we've never heard sitting in the singer's vault alongside his unseen documentary.
And despite the fact that their time together ended on somewhat of a bum note, it's clear the experience didn't sour Smith on Prince's music:
