Prince: The Least Beautiful

Mayte Garcia was Prince's first wife. She wrote a book about her life, including her life with Prince, called The Most Beautiful. It is ruthlessly honest, but written from a place of kindness and love that I can't help but admire. Despite the fact that Prince--as anyone paying close attention probably might have already guessed--is not at all a good person to become romantically involved with, Garcia's book tries so hard to be sympathetic and fair that at times it's almost hard to take it at face value. When I started reading, I thought that Garcia was incredibly naive. By the end of the book, I realized she was just being incredibly kind.

Garcia, already an accomplished dancer in her own rite, met Prince when she was 16. He was the first man she ever loved, and the first person she ever had sex with. Her life with Prince seemed to be a fairy tale (to her at least, I was waving red flags before they even started dating--but then I'm not an inexperienced teenager). She met Prince when she attended a Prince show, handed him a tape of her dancing, and Prince asked to meet her. The tape was her parents' idea. Mayte was doing a lot of dancing at the time to Arabic music, and when her father heard an Arabic influence in "Thieves In the Temple," he urged her to give Prince the tape. This seemingly makes Mayte Garcia's father the only person who liked"Thieves in the Temple."

Prince is charmed by the young lady, and soon asks her to join his band as a dancer. He does this in as enigmatically as you would expect. And it's worth considering how cool you would find the passive/aggressive silent treatment that Prince gives his bandmates in Purple Rain if you were one of the actual bandmates.

They become friends. Here's a letter Prince wrote to her after he found out some of the girls in his backing band were being mean to Garcia. Note, this was before they started dating. Prince uses a picture of an eye instead of writing "I," but I'm not going to do that. I'll keep the "u"s though.

One of the main reasons I love and worship u is because u don't have a history. And what's more beautiful is that u don't desire one. I can't begin 2 tell you how many women are jealous of u because they know u're a virgin. They don't want u around because they feel less than u.

A totally normal thing for a 34 year old man to write to an 18 year old girl who's working for him. And if you're wondering why her virginity is some kind of blessing, but Prince's extreme lack of virginity doesn't make him "less," or what makes him think she doesn't "desire" to, uh, lose that virginity, congratulations you're thinking very clearly about this situation. Anyway, not too soon after that letter he docked her a week's pay because he saw some junk food on a table next to her backstage.

At a certain point, their love is undeniable. Prince handles it like a, uh, real swell guy.

Prince leaned into my ear and said, "I think it's time."
"What do you mean?" I said, like an idiot. '
"It's. Time."
"For. . ."
"For you to get on birth control."

Of course, she has to go do it all by herself. I should point out that he an experienced adult well into his 30's at this point, and she is a 19 year old girl. To an armchair observer, their relationship feels a lot like grooming. Their connection feels real enough throughout the book, but one has to feel the reason Prince waited until she was 19 before they consummated their relationship is because he didn't want to be a skeez (spoiler alert: he dumps her for a younger woman. Well, not exactly dumps,. More like starts ignoring her, dating someone else, and waits for her to ask for a divorce). Where were we? Oh yeah, Mayte Garcia's trying to get birth control, a decision that has been made for her by Prince.

I won't go into the thousand deaths I died making the appointment, enduring my first Pap smear, an forcing myself to present the prescription at the drugstore.... You have to understand, I wasn't ignorant, but I'd had a traumatic childhood experience that made me extremely protective about that part of myself.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Garcia was sexually abused as a child. Hey idiot, Prince. She wasn't a virgin because she was more highly evolved.  She was a virgin because she was scared shitless.

Look, there's a long history of older men, particularly ones who are in a seedy industry like entertainment or politics, who are surrounded by corruption and people wanting something from them, being attracted to young women because they see them as more pure than their day-to-day reality. They see the innocence of the young person as a refreshing change from most people they encounter. This is a sympathetic reading, of course. It's also likely than an inexperienced person is less likely to call them on their bullshit.

But for now things are great. Mayte and Prince are in love. Prince makes all the important decisions. He chooses the music. Prince decides where they'll eat. He treats her like a princess, etc. It's not all control-freak hell. They collaborate on projects, he handling the music, she handling the dance.

Then she gets pregnant. And the story goes from mildly disturbing to outright monstrous. It starts innocently enough. They call everyone they know, when she's only six weeks pregnant, as soon as the pregnancy test comes back positive. You shouldn't do this. A lot can go wrong in the first trimester, and it's best to just wait it out. Still, Prince is doting father-to-be, if still throwing up those red flags. He buys a monitor so he can hear the baby's heartbeat. Fine. Then there's this disturbing incident, shortly after Prince has a short-lived reunion with his estranged father. Garcia wakes up and can't find Prince. She calls around Paisley Park trying to find him.

The security person called me a little while later, speaking Spanish so my husband wouldn't know what they were telling me. They were taking him to the emergency room. They'd found him passed out. There was vomit on the floor. He was saying it was because he took aspirin with red wine, which made zero sense to me.

This wasn't the first time Prince had seemed a little, in her words, off. Maybe there's another reason you get into a relationship with someone who's young and naive, and who doesn't do drugs. Anyway. Garcia rushes to the hospital. When Prince sees her, he jumps off the gurney and announces they're leaving. Garcia, naturally, has some questions.

"What were you thinking? Why would you--"
"I had a migraine," he said. "I took too many pills.:"
"Too many aspirin."
"Yes."
"Why? How is that even possible."
"I don't know. My head hurt." He turned and said to his security person. "Go back and get those records. This is private."

On the way home, Prince tells her not to worry. "It was a stupid mistake." With the benefit of hindsight, Mayte Garcia, no longer as young and naive, realized she was being bullshitted.

Yes, it's lame. I look back now, and I see a dozen moments like this one, and I want to go back in time and shake this girl by the shoulders and say, "Wake up! Aspirin? Girl, please!"

Later she adds, "We didn't mention it the next day--or ever." Garcia hints throughout the book that Prince's drug use had been going on for some time, dating at least back to the early 80's. She's kind enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, she didn't see him actually take anything. She just saw him slurring his words and acting weird. Even when she realizes that Prince likes to go on little "Vicodin holidays" (my phrase, not hers), she's quick to rationalize his behavior. After all, look how hard he was working his body on stage, the immense pressure he was under, etc. etc. Which would be all fine and good if he hadn't docked her a week's pay when he saw some junk food on a table next to her backstage.

The story gets dark fast, real dark. Just before she's four months pregnant, Garcia wakes up and realizes she's bleeding. She's in NYC. Prince had left the day before to head home. She and her mother rush to a doctor who sends her back to Minneapolis. Their doctor there suggests they do an amnio "to make sure there's nothing wrong genetically." Prince says no, it's in God's hands. He takes Mayte home and has them pray together. God must have been out of the office that day, because things get worse. Another ultrasound produces concerns, and the doctor again urges an ultrasound, in case there are "genetic abnormalities," in order to be prepared. Prince says no, again saying they're leaving it up to God. The next day, she goes into early labor. The doctor again mentions how because they didn't do the amnio, they don't know what they're dealing with. Prince, at this point turning into the most self-righteous religious dick, tells her, "If there's something wrong, it's God's will. Not because we didn't prepare." Prince then says, "I'm taking her home." The doctor objects, and they begin loudly arguing. The doctor says that if they go, Mayte needs to sign a release that says she's leaving against the doctor's advice and understands she's in danger."

"I'll sign," I said, in tears because I didn't want to upset my husband who clearly needed me.... He wasn't used to someone standing up to him like that, and the more disrespected he felt, the more scared I was of the jangling, negative energy swirling around us in that little box of a room.

Yeah. Once in the car, she begs him to take her to another doctor. They pull into the closest ER. A doctor explains why she'll have to have a C-section, to which Prince, not a doctor, responds, "The body can do remarkable things." If you're wondering why Prince is the one making all the decisions on his wife's delivery, I can tell you. It's because Prince is a control freak asshole. This can be a good quality for creating great art; it's a very bad quality for being a good husband, or a good human being.

Which isn't to say he was a bad human being. As I explain to our four year old son, there's no such thing as a good person or a bad person. People do good things and bad things. Even the not-nicest person on earth sometimes does nice things. (I don't explain to him this is why people often stay with their abusers, but it's true).It's up to you to figure out what you're willing to deal with in people, when to use your words and tell people how they're making you feel, and when to decide you don't want to be friends with someone. Let's just say Prince and I wouldn't have lasted long as a couple.

So Mayte's in the hospital. Prince sings to the baby. He holds her hand during the Cesarean. He arranges for a plastic surgeon to oversee the procedure (I know, right). Their son is born, and there are problems. I'm going to quote this passage in full, because Mayte Garcia deserves to tell her own story about this.

On the cold white page of a medical text, Pfeiffer syndrome type 2 is a genetic disorder that causes skeletal and systemic abnormalities. Crarniosynostosis is the premature fusing of the bones in the skull, sometimes resulting in "cloverleaf skull, " in which the eyes are located outside the sockets. Brachydactyly is the fusion of bones in the hands and feet, causing a webbed or pawlike appearance. Anal atresia is the absence of an anus, indicating life-threatening abnormalities in the colon and bowels. I learned all this later.I became fluent in a language I didn't want to speak. But in that first moment, I couldn't understand what I was seeing. It was as if we were at the center of a whirlpool, and the room around us was turning in on itself, contorting, twisting everything.

There follows panic, chaos, a series of surgeries. Prince, to his credit, dotes on his newborn child with a fierce protectiveness and selflessness. Less to his credit, he doesn't allow Mayte to see him, telling her, "I don't want you to see him like this. I don't want you to see him till they get him stabilized so he can come home with us." Not your decision, asshole. Meanwhile, Prince goes and sees the baby whenever he wants. After a couple of days, Prince goes home to take a shower, and once he leaves, Mayte gets a nurse to bring her to see her son. That's a big fucking red flag by the way. For the first time, since he was born, she finally gets to hold her son. Prince returns to the hospital. "I worried that he'd be angry," she writes, "but he wasn't." And by now we have enough red flags to start our own international communist movement. After six days, their baby is still struggling, and Mayte says to a doctor, "He's not leaving here, is he?" The doctor avoids the question, but things don't look good. She realizes that the baby's life is, and is always going to be, agony, and it pains her. Talking with the doctors and her husband, they agree to take the baby off the life support. Papers are signed, a time is scheduled, and Mayte Garcia wakes up to a phone call, answered by Prince.

My husband came in and said, "It's done. They took the tubes out."
"What? No! I'm supposed to be there!"
"I didn't know if you could handle it."
"I'm going. Right now. If no one wants to take me, I'll drive."
He put his arms around me. Made me stop. IN less time than it would have taken me to get there, the phone rang again. He answered it, and then he hung up and said, "He's gone."

Fucking fuck this guy. Seriously. This is the second time I've read this, and both times I've been flooded with adrenaline against my will. Go get the book from your library and read the rest, about how Oprah arrives a week later to see the baby for a TV segment around Prince's new album, and Mayte is forced to pretend like their baby is still alive. Read about her second miscarriage, and Prince continuing to argue, what Garcia now recognizes as "a solid refusal to place my physical well-being over his own self-righteousness." Prince meets someone else, lies about it. When Garcia is too worn out to go to a basketball game with him, Prince responds, "Fuck you. You know how many people want to go to this basketball fame with me? How many women exhaust themselves trying to get my attention?" You can read about how he encourages her to go to Spain to fix up their house there and then barely ever shows up. How he suggests they get their marriage annulled so they can "continue our marriage in a less traditional fashion." They argue for a couple of days. They make plans to renew their vows and start over. She signs the paper. The next day he's gone. The vows aren't renewed. He's seen in public with other women. Finally, isolated in a house in a different continent, she writes him a letter. Prince, being Prince, has his assistant burn everything in his house that reminds him of her or their baby, including the kid's ashes. There's more. You should read it.

Again, this book is, if anything, overly sympathetic to Prince, and quick to rationalize even his shittiest behavior. For the record, Garcia never makes any claims of abuse, but plenty of other people have. Sinead O'Connor said Prince "used hard drugs commonly," and added, "He had been extremely violent to a number of women in his life including myself." She also alleges that the singer tried to "beat the shit out of me." The story goes that he summoned her to Paisley Park around the time Nothing Compares 2 U became a big hit to complain about Sinead's swearing in interviews. Sinead, quite rightly, told him to fuck off, and Prince flipped out.

Jill Jones, Prince's girlfriend from 1980-83-ish posted this on Facebook in the aftermath of the Chris Brown/Rhianna incident. "The honorable thing would've been for Prince to speak up and stop being so pious. Chris got caught, he never did." She deleted the post, but never denied what she had posted.

Garcia wasn't the only barely-of-age woman Prince was involved with either. Charlene Friend was 18 and Prince was 32 when they got involved. She would later accuse him of emotional and sexual abuse. He filmed her without her consent and made her watch videos of him fucking other women. Later, she realized that he been doing a lot of cocaine around that time.There were other young girls. Susan Moonsie, Anna Garcia a/k/a Anna Fantastic.

At this point, it would take a whole lot of mental gymnastics to think of Prince the person as anything other than a neurotic hypocritical control freak who dealt with--or more accurately, failed to deal with his insecurities and traumatic upbringing, and instead played out those traumas as an adult, and inflicted them on others. He treated the women he loved, at first like they were perfect, and then later like they were disposable.

The point of all this isn't to force people to make a decision on how they feel about Prince, or to call for his cancellation. It's to remind people that we don't know as much about artists as we think we do. The Ryan Adams stuff surfaced while I was thinking about writing this article. And one of the things that motivated to actually write it was seeing a tweet from Maura Johnston--a writer & thinker about music who I've always admired--reacting to the Ryan Adams news by saying she was going to go listen to Prince in order to, and I'm paraphrasing here, get the Ryan Adams stink away. And I remember thinking that's like reacting to the news about Louis C.K. by putting on some old Bill Cosby records. I understand her discomfort though. Believe me, as a parent of a kid that had a life-threatening illness at two weeks old, reading Mayte Garcia's account of the death of their child fucked me up pretty good, and I've been carrying around some serious negative Prince feelings. His records are upstairs because I have no desire to listen to them right now. But, in addition to whatever thoughts I feel like posting on here, I've been writing this column where, starting in the first week of 1984, I write about the #40 song on that week's Billboard Singles Chart. I also talk a little about the #1 song as well. This week it was When Doves Cry. I wrote about Prince's music, and even embedded an under-appreciated Prince song, All the Critics Love U In New York, to illuminate what I was talking about.

Look, most human beings are problematic. Artists tends to be especially problematic, not because being an artist makes you more likely to be, uh, troubled or some shit, but because more people are likely to excuse your bullshit because of your art. And as long as we're pontificating about human behavior, let me suggest here that if you experienced serious trauma/abuse/neglect growing up, that becoming one of the most famous fucking people on the planet doesn't seem like it does a whole hell of a lot of good in helping people to deal with their shit. Fame, and money, and power, aren't going to fix anything. In fact, they're more likely to disorient you, and distract you from doing the real, actual work necessary to break the cycles that need breaking.

Lastly, one of my favorite albums of all time is John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band. Favorite isn't the right word. It implies a joy in listening, a kind of fandom that isn't exactly accurate. Let's just say that the deep levels of emotion in that record--the anger, sadness, and love--that is overflowing in that record reaches parts of me, explains parts of me, and comforts parts of me, that very few records are able to do. I'd take that record over everything the Beatles ever recorded. These days, at least in the social media circles I travel in, John Lennon is more likely to be dismissed  as a wife beater. Which is understandable. After all, he told people all about it.

I was a hitter. I couldn’t express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women… But I sincerely believe in love and peace. I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence. I will have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as a youngster.

He was shot and killed within months of saying this, which adds a certain tragedy to that last sentence. Of course, he said this in an interview with Playboy to promote his forthcoming album, so that kind of is facing it in public. But I think Lennon is expressing the deep shame he felt for the things that he did. If it is true, that he learned not to be violent and felt remorse, then it means he did some hard work, and confronted the worst parts of himself. That's a story, in my opinion, to draw strength from.

Which isn't to say John Lennon was a better person than Prince, or vice-versa, or whatever. It's just saying that 21st century woke-ness is awesome, and long overdue, but it's also complicated. It's going to require serious critical thinking skills. And if something feels easy (Michael bad, Prince good, Ryan bad, Lennon bad, Bowie good, Axl fine, Streisand good), it probably isn't. The only absolutely true thing about humans is that anyone is capable of anything. And if we're going to start dividing up people, or artists, into camps of good or bad, things are going to get complicated, and confused, very quickly. These are arguments worth having, but they are arguments with no easy, or absolute, solutions.