The death of the prince made me turn my life upside down and move to his hometown | Prince

I distinctly remember the first time I heard Prince. I was a dreamy, artistic kid growing up in rural Australia in the 1980s, and I felt completely out of place. One day, I turned toward the cassette radio in my bedroom, and heard something very different from the rock music I grew up with — upbeat, energetic music. It was the prince. My body moved. From that moment on, he became my secret soulmate, his music carrying a powerful mix of sexuality and spirituality that I had yet to master. I felt like songs like Controversy and Purple Rain were permission to fully express myself.

My love for Prince remained as I grew older. I moved to New York to pursue a career in the arts, but wasn’t able to fully realize it, and ended up as an arts director. I supported other artists, organized programs, and lived alongside creativity rather than within it.

My whole life I’ve wanted to see Prince live, but I’ve always hesitated. I came close, and was considering tickets to the show at Madison Square Garden, but I didn’t go. After his religious conversion in 2001, I think I was afraid to see him change, diminished by the exciting vision of liberation I had in my imagination. It was the regret that shaped everything that came after.

When he died in 2016, I was in a subway station. I read the news on my phone and physically stumbled backwards, pinning myself against the tiled wall. The grief was overwhelming and immediate. I went home and cried for days, consuming everything I could about the prince. I combed the city looking for a purple piece of clothing, and eventually came upon a purple sequined dress, which became my armor. I wore it from the store straight to the subway, which felt both silly and right. Within a week, movie theaters across the city were showing Purple Rain. For about a month, I took myself to shows every few days after work. Sometimes they were crowded, other times it was just me and Amir in the room.

Within weeks of his death, the idea of ​​visiting Minneapolis, Prince’s home, began to take hold. It didn’t make sense – the prince was gone, what could I find there now? -But I couldn’t get rid of it. So I booked a ticket. From the moment I got into the taxi at the airport, people started telling me their stories about the prince. I visited his home, Paisley Park, for the first time, where strangers gathered at the fence, leaving offerings – flowers, letters, works of art – and talking to each other with a refreshing openness. The whole city began to feel charmed by this shared love and experience.

I returned to New York, but I couldn’t settle down. I returned to Minneapolis again and again. Within months, I had decided I was moving. Unlike the rest of my life, where I became an administrator rather than an artist, I thought: “What if I just listen to this call this time, and see where this mysterious journey will lead me?” Finally, about a year after Prince’s death, I quit my job and my life in New York. I didn’t have a clear plan. I was in the middle of my PhD, doing research on the role of artists in society, and I turned my focus entirely toward Prince and his legacy. In this way, Minneapolis became my subject and my home.

I started collecting stories, and noticed the way people were making their own tributes, their own memorials. This became the People’s Museum of Prince, a grassroots museum I founded, which traces Prince’s transformative impact through the memories of those whose lives he touched.

Around the same time, friends put me in touch with a man who needed a house sitter for his house in Minneapolis while he was away for the summer. The moment we met, we fell in love. She moved into his house while he was away. When he came back, I didn’t go out. It was intense and overwhelming, and the emotional acceleration mirrored everything else in my life. For a while, it felt like Minneapolis gave me everything at once.

Then the relationship ended in an acrimonious and destructive way. In the aftermath, I left town, eventually returning to Australia during the pandemic. But Minneapolis still feels like a second home. Now, at 55, living between Australia and Minneapolis, I continue to work at the museum, making films — including a short documentary called “Dear Beloved” about my journey connecting with Prince — and finishing the work that began there.

I came to Minneapolis looking for Prince, tracking down the places he lived, and researching his life. Instead, what I found was community and, more importantly, rediscovering my artistic self. I went looking for Prince and found a way back to my own life, and to the artist I always dreamed of becoming.

Dear beloved is It is currently showing at festivals. Feature film inspired by the 1960sHort in development.