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Prince Plus House Enough To Inspire Calm Carlos Boozer’s Rage BY HERB GOULD hgould@suntimes.com Mar 30, 2011 02:14AM
While the Bulls-watching world has high anxiety after that messy loss to Philadelphia on Monday, Carlos Boozer remains unflappable.
‘‘Tell the fans to stay tuned. We’re doing fine,’’ Boozer said after practice Tuesday at the Berto Center. ‘‘Hang in there with us. We’re gonna be just fine.’’
But there are things that rattle Boozer. Like the time he rented his Beverly Hills house to Prince, who turned it into a purple reign while living there in 2004-05. Boozer sued the rock star in January 2006 over the unauthorized changes.
Boozer, who had been working out with a trainer in Los Angeles, said he was about to move up to Utah to play for the Jazz when his realtor called and said, ‘‘There’s a guy that really wants to rent your house.’’
Boozer’s first response?
‘‘I’m like, ‘I’m not leasing my house,’ ’’ the Bulls forward said. ‘‘The amount of money he was willing to pay made me reconsider. I can’t speak about that. He rented it out for like nine or 10 months.
‘‘He made it purple. He put his purple touch on it because he wanted it to feel like home. I was kind of worried about that when I saw the house.’’
Kind of worried? Former Bulls guard Jay Williams, Boozer’s close friend and former Duke teammate, said Boozer was enraged.
‘‘He called me and said, ‘Dude, I rolled past my house three times. I had no idea it was my house,’ ’’ Williams said on “Waddle & Silvy” on ESPN Radio 1000.
In the lawsuit, Boozer claimed that Prince added purple stripes and the Prince symbol to the exterior of the house, installed black carpet in the downstairs guest room, put in plumbing and piping in the downstairs bedroom to feed water to beauty salon chairs and installed purple monogrammed carpet in the master bedroom. Prince paid $70,000 a month in rent, according to the lawsuit.
‘‘Booz was livid,’’ Williams said. ‘‘He was so [ticked] off, so angry. Booz was like, ‘I was getting ready to go over and beat this little man down.’ ’’
The story had a happy ending, Williams said, when Prince came to Boozer with an offer.
‘‘ ‘Here’s a check for a million dollars that will take care of everything to get it back the way you like it,’ ” Williams said Prince offered. “Booz was like, ‘Man, this little dude is cool.’ ’’
In February 2006, an attorney for Boozer asked for the suit’s dismissal, which the court approved, according to The Smoking Gun. The case was dismissed “without prejudice,” meaning Boozer has the ability to file another lawsuit over the same claims.
Their housing differences resolved, Boozer and Prince are on good terms these days. They even got together a couple of times in New York last summer.
‘‘We had a good time at a lounge,’’ Boozer said. ‘‘He’s a great dude. Very humble. Very successful. He has a great spirit about him. He knows how to live. He lives a good life. I’ll put it that way.’’
Boozer has watched ‘‘Purple Rain’’ a couple of times and considers it a great movie.
‘‘I’m not a big fan of some of his concerts,’’ Boozer added. ‘‘He likes to do the butt-cheek thing, not really my thing. Some of his music is pretty hot, though. My mom and dad grew up in that era. When he had a concert at Madison Square Garden after Christmas, I got them tickets.’’
When Prince redecorated a house rented from Carlos Boozer, the power forward, who was then with the Jazz, didn’t think the results were pretty at all. | AP (Prince), The Smoking Gun (house), AP (Boozer) | |
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