The Real Reason Why The Prince Doc Will Never Be Seen, Part 1
Prince did some really bad things
It might be the greatest documentary about Prince that will ever be made, and you’ll never see it. Right now it’s sitting on the proverbial shelf at Netflix, scheduled to never air. But a few people have seen it at private screenings—“It is a masterpiece,” the culture critic Wesley Morris said. Because of them I can tell you the real reason why you’ll never see this doc—because Prince did some really fucked up things. I’m going to tell you some of big ones.
About five years ago, Netflix hired Academy Award-winning documentarian Ezra Edelman to create a six-hour documentary about Prince. Netflix had purchased Prince’s famed vault, so Edelman had access to tons of audio and video that no one had ever seen. He spent years interviewing over 70 people in Prince’s life. His big story was that Prince was difficult, but people loved him.
I saw that dynamic when I was writing my Prince biography, Nothing Compares 2 U which you can get on Amazon. Mark Brown, who played bass in the Revolution, told me about his first rehearsal with the band. Brown wasn’t playing the way Prince liked so Prince went around behind him and literally kicked him in the ass, very hard, while wearing heeled boots.