NinaB said:

I'm trying to read that too whose got it?

Why do you want to read it? It was all bullshit, made up to sell for coke money.

TheDigitalGardener said:

I remember that interview.I had that issue of National Enquirer back then The headline read "Prince is living in a secret world of terror".If I remember correctly,Chick reported that Prince was paranoid,always thinking that somebody was trying to kill him.I thought it was just tabloid nonsense,lol.

SoulAlive said:

breakdown2k14 said:

SoulAlive said:

I remember that interview.I had that issue of National Enquirer back then The headline read "Prince is living in a secret world of terror".If I remember correctly,Chick reported that Prince was paranoid,always thinking that somebody was trying to kill him.I thought it was just tabloid nonsense,lol.

Well prince did bring a ton of bodyguards with him when he went to Elizabeth Taylors house back in the 80's

yeah,he sure did.She was pissed She angrily asked him "Did you think I hired assasins?!"

ON May 7th, a month after the conclusion of the Purple Rain tour, the National Enquirer, America's premier gossip publication, published a vastly exaggerated interview with Prince's former bodyguard and friend, Chick Huntsberry, that sustained the critical backlash against Prince. Huntsberry had left Prince's employ towards the end of the Purple Rain tour. He had developed a cocaine habit and was so desperate for cash that he sold the story of his life with Prince to the National Enquirer. "We just had a little falling-out," Huntsberry later explained. "I was on drugs, bad, but Prince never touched them. He was clean. I couldn't take the pressure. If I wouldn't have been on drugs, I would never have left him. I really had a love for Prince. Not queer or anything, but a son love. It really hurt me when we split up. I started thinking things that were probably not happening. I started thinking he was doing me wrong, which he wasn't. Prince begged me to come back. He called me from New York and said he needed me. I wanted to go back and help him so bad, but because of drugs I didn't. As long as I was doing them, I couldn't even think." Huntsberry would later escape his drug addiction and he became a preacher, devoting his life to God. Despite everything that came to divide them, he reamined on good terms with Prince until his death of heart failure at age 49 in 1990. Shortly after, Prince staged a benefit concert for Huntsberry's family, his wife and six children, at the Rupert's nightclub in Minneapolis.

The National Enquirer article, entitled "The Real Prince - He's Trapped in a bizarre secret world of terror", portrayed Prince as a lonely, isolated figure, trapped by his own fame. According to the piece, he was an insomniac workaholic, believing himself to be a "new" Mozart. The article prompted Prince's management to offer a response. "The whole thing was absurd," said Steve Fargnoli. "It's about as accurate and as consistent with the facts as they rest of the articles in that paper. They tend to exaggerate things, don't they?" However, the National Enquirer staff reporter Sam Rubin, who co-wrote the article, defended its accuracy, saying that he spoke to Huntsberry twice in person. He admitted that they had paid Huntsberry around $3,000 for his story.

On the surface, Prince took Huntsberry's "revelations" in good spirit. "I think they just took everything he said and blew it up. They're just doing their thing. Right on for them." In truth, he was deeply hurt by Huntsberry's expose and felt compelled to talk to the press to answer many of the criticisms and lies which were circulating. A few days later, he gave the go-ahead to an interview with Neal Karlen of Rolling Stone. Karlen interviewed Prince over two days in May in Minneapolis. It was Prince's first press interview in three years.

Prince began work on Parade on April 17th 1985 at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, a mere 10 days after the completion of the Purple Rain tour (and a few days prior to the release of ATWIAD). On the 4th da of Parade sessions, he recorded "Old Friends 4 Sale", a song which addressed several of the controversies surrounding him at the time. "that song was very personal," observes Peggy McCreary, who remembers it as a "very somber and sad day in the studio". It is worth noting that the song was recorded before the National Enquirer news had hit the street, but Prince was probably aware that Chick Huntsberry had sold his story to the publication when he cut "Old Friends 4 Sale". The song was included on the first configuration of the Parade album, along with "Others Here With Us" and "All My Dreams", which also were replaced at a later stage. However, "Old Friends 4 Sale" can be heard in UTCM.

"http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=17&topic_id=45201&mesg_id=45706