Prince: Abuse Victim, Thrown Out Of Home — Terrible Childhood Revealed

Prince had a tumultuous upbringing and he sang about it in his emotional song, ‘Papa.’ The singer has been open about his dad kicking him out of the house after he caught him in bed with a girl and he has said he cried and begged his father to take him back but he refused.

Prince may have appeared to have had it all but it turns out he was a man who experienced a lot of tragedy in his life. The 57-year-old singer’s roller coaster childhood has not been widely documented but Prince himself told Larry King once that his father was “a very strict disciplinarian.” Just how strict? According to the book Prince: Chaos, Disorder, and Revolution by Jason Draper, Prince was reportedly abused at the hands of his father, John Lewis Nelson and kicked out onto the street.

A excerpt of the book reads: “Prince has reportedly shared stories of abuse with a few close confidantes, notably Susan Rogers, his engineer from 1983 to 1988, who worked on his bestselling albums. ‘Prince told me there was abuse in his childhood.'” In Prince’s song “Papa,” he seems to touch on the abuse by singing: “Don’t abuse children or else they turn out like me.” Prince bounced around from house to house after his parents divorced when he was 10. Alan Leeds, Prince’s former tour manager has said: “His mother basically walked away from him, and his father struggled to raise him and threw in the towel … It certainly doesn’t add up to a very secure, well-rounded individual.”

Something that is very heartbreaking is that during a 1985 Rolling Stone interview, Prince told journalist, Neal Karlan, that after his dad kicked him out of the house after being caught in bed with a girl, he would have done anything for his dad to forgive him and let him come home. “I called my dad and begged him to take me back … he said no, so I called my sister [Tyka] and begged her to ask him. So she did, and afterward told me all I had to do was call him back, tell him I was sorry, and he’d take me back. So I did, and he still said no. I sat crying at that phone booth for two hours. That’s the last time I cried.”


Prince was found dead at his home Paisley Park on April 21 and the cause of death is currently unknown. The seven-time Grammy winner had reportedly been suffering from the flu and fallen ill but TMZ claims he suffered a drug overdose six days before his death and was raced to the hospital in Illinois. Prince’s team reportedly left the hospital once they were told he could not have a private room. Prince led a very private life and not too much is known about his final days. Hopefully we will all get answers to piece together this tragic story.

HollywoodLifers, we will keep you posted on this developing story.

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