Prince (musician)

American singer, composer and all-around rock actor; he signed with Warner Bros Records in 1977 on the basis of a one-man demo tape. His first film was "Purple Rain," 1982. A workaholic obsessed with his music, he is admittedly "not normal, exactly."

Slight in build with a slinky sexuality, he changed his name for publicity in 1993, choosing an unintelligible symbol. After that time he was often referred to as "The Artist Formerly Known as Sane." With doe-brown eyes and a sweet spaniel smile, he wears lace gloves, velvet and ruffles. Even though the sexuality of his show was just short of raunchy, his personal sexual preference appeared questionable for some time before his name was linked with several beautiful women.

There is no question as to his talent. He first made an impression as a one-man combination of James Brown, John Lennon, George Clinton, Todd Rundgren and Henry Miller. With the same combination of exhibitionism and need for attention that Madonna has, he sings about such taboos as incest, bi-sexuality and the deflowering of an underage child-woman, along with today's mainstream approach of "shake your booty" and various stages of nudity.

He and his wife, Mayte Garcia-Nelson, had a baby boy on 16 October 1996, born with a rare skull deformity. The baby died a week later. Twin women employees, Erlene and Arlene Mojica contacted authorities about the case, instigating an inquiry into the baby's death. Neither the birth nor the death certificate lists a father and the death certificate does not clearly identify the baby's mother. The two employees had been fired on 23 December 1996. The Hennepin County medical examiner's office in Minneapolis concluded that the baby died of natural causes when he was seven days old.

In 1999, Prince was a homebody, enjoying TV, playing pool and bowling, living 17 miles west of Minneapolis. He dresses like a Sultan to grace his ornate mansion.