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Apollonia Kotero opened up about her longtime friendship with the late Prince and shared some intimate details about him that fans didn’t get to see.
Kotero, who met Prince when she auditioned for Purple Rain, said from that moment on they remained in each other’s lives. She said their connection was never romantic off the cameras but she did have a brief crush on him at one point.
“I had a little mini crush one time,” she told People “He was performing ‘Computer Blue’ and he was oily and shirtless and for a moment I was like, ‘He’s really sexy,’ but then I got myself together. We had great chemistry. But our romance was only onscreen.”
She went to talk about how playful and fun their relationship was throughout the years.
“He was a prankster!,” she said. “He’d put salt in my desserts. And he was competitive! He challenged us, but he also brought out the best of us. He was a perfectionist.”
Prince was a mega superstar but the celebrity status that came with his career was difficult to adjust to.
“The fame became a challenge for him,” Kotero said. “He was modest. But he became alive on stage and became the Prince we all know and love.”
Kotero also recounted the last time she saw the “Let’s Get Crazy” singer and said she noticed something different about him.
“He was a little quiet and he didn’t look the same,” she said. “Out of the blue he said, ‘Some people think I look too thin,’ but then he shrugged his shoulders. When we said goodbye, I told him I loved him, and he told me, ‘I love you too.'”
Prince died of an accidental overdose of fentanyl on April 21, 2016 at 57. He was taking what he thought was Vicodin to help with injuries sustained while performing through the years but it was actual a fake painkiller laced with fentanyl, NBC reported. His unexpected death hit Kotero hard.
“I became severely depressed,” she said. “It was horrible.”
Thanks to therapy, she was able to process her grief.
“Prince gave me beautiful gifts,” she continued. “He is my legacy. And he will live on forever.”
