Im recalling how I felt when one of my old coworkers who knew I loved Prince called me and she was like "are you okay" and I said what are you talking about? Then she told me to turn on CNN and my world hasnt been the same since

I started checking in here every morning after the cancelled concert.

I saw this thread and knew to expect the worst.

Saw confirmation on local Minneapolis TV website.

I checked the org before heading to bed and saw the 'paramedics at paisley' thread that was 8 mins old..

yeah.

joeycocopuffs said:

I checked the org before heading to bed and saw the 'paramedics at paisley' thread that was 8 mins old..

yeah.

You work nights?

EnDoRpHn said:

joeycocopuffs said:

I checked the org before heading to bed and saw the 'paramedics at paisley' thread that was 8 mins old..

yeah.

You work nights?

No i'm just a nocturnal vampire with a fucked up time schedule lmao
i sleep around 7-8am and up til around 5pm.

I work at a news radio station so I unfortunately had to help air the story as breaking news. I heard about it about 15 minutes before any mainstream source was reporting it, just the initial unconfirmed reports. Worst day at work I've ever had. I was so wrecked they offered me to go home for the day, which I thought was thoughtful. But I stayed. I somehow managed to eulogize him on air, but it felt like an out-of-body experience. Very unpleasant. Glad I did it though, just because no one else there had any real knowledge of his career and work (outside of knowing about "the hits" and the name change and stuff like that).

Got a text from my sister that said "Prince died?" (My family knows that I a longtime fan). I though she was refering to the emergency plane landing from the previous week. But... I got on the internet... and it was still unconfirmed. Not long after, it was confirmed. First time I cried in a while. Still depressed about it.

It was like on September 11, 1999. Then, I woke up, I turned the TV on, had the sound turned low, saw video of the Towers falling...but I thought it was a movie. When Prince passed on, I found out (after a very sleepless night where I felt something was wrong but I thought it was about a family member) I woke up in the morning, logged on to the computer and was hit in the face with the news that Prince was gone. And nothing has been the same since then... It just doesn't seem real. And never will.

purplethunder3121 said:

It was like on September 11, 1999. Then, I woke up, I turned the TV on, had the sound turned low, saw video of the Towers falling...but I thought it was a movie. When Prince passed on, I found out (after a very sleepless night where I felt something was wrong but I thought it was about a family member) I woke up in the morning, logged on to the computer and was hit in the face with the news that Prince was gone. And nothing has been the same since then... It just doesn't seem real. And never will.

1999? you mean 2001?

joeycocopuffs said:

purplethunder3121 said:

It was like on September 11, 1999. Then, I woke up, I turned the TV on, had the sound turned low, saw video of the Towers falling...but I thought it was a movie. When Prince passed on, I found out (after a very sleepless night where I felt something was wrong but I thought it was about a family member) I woke up in the morning, logged on to the computer and was hit in the face with the news that Prince was gone. And nothing has been the same since then... It just doesn't seem real. And never will.

1999? you mean 2001?

Oh geez, getting the Twin Towers falling mixed up with the song 1999. Been around way too long...

Was out to dinner with my wife and in-laws. The restaurant had tv screens and there was a picture of Prince and the vrekaing news about a fatality at the Park. I tried to get on the org to find out what was happening. The org was broken, I feared the worst.

Went to the bathroom, turned on my laptop and TV, saw that "Paisley Park" was trending on Twitter and went to check it out. That was when I found out that "someone" needed paramedics there. I felt guilty for it, but I was hoping that the "someone" would be some random schmuck and not Prince (even though, since the plane incident, I had a general idea that it would be Prince). I put on CNN and they break the news. My mom and I cried the whole day.

I was on the way to the emergency doctors as I'd been quite ill all day - I found out right before I had to leave so it didn't sink in at all. I'm in the UK so I think it was just after 6pm when the news broke here. I thought everything would be ok since the plane incident had appeared to have been blown out of proportion & I couldn't really think about it since I was so ill, so I was pretty calm about it. I ended up having to spend the night in hospital & the next morning the radio was on & Kiss was playing followed by 1999. Several nurses were stood in a group talking & I heard 1 say something about a person being found dead in the lift - I figured they meant at the hospital especially as they all sounded upset about it. It wasn't until I got home that afternoon that I realised he really had gone & when I read how he was found I was reeling. It feels like yesterday & forever ago all at the same time.

That evening, one of my cousins - with whom I hadn't been in touch for years, had just tagged me in the post she was sharing on her fb page. I was very intrigued, as the source was from an obscure french radiostation and it showed a photo of Prince. It was the cover of the Parade album. My cousins' comment above the image was "happy childhood memories with my cousins [me and my sister's names here]".

I initially thought she was randomly thinking of me and my sister and that she was just sharing a Prince song online... I had made her discover Prince in the late 80's and used to force her to listen to every song on every albums, as you do when you're a dedicated Prince fan... But then my eyes looked further down and I saw the title under the image: "R.I.P...". At that point I sort of understood the words, but I didn't register them inside me. I was refusing to associate those words with Prince and thinking that it must have been a mistake or a joke - no matter how bad - while keeping on searching online for proofs that it wasn't true. I couldn't understand that "my Prince", the one that had looked and felt so strong and alive back in 2007, was... gone. My mind kept doing strange things to me, like sending me straight back to the sensorial memories of the smooth silky skin, of his delicate hand in mine, and even the feeling of his foot moving under the fabric of his boot (which I had touched briefly whilst he was singing), and basically every little thing that reminded me of him being alive and moving rather than those cold stiff ugly news.

It was simply too painful to deal with so for a moment I desperately tried to cling on to that disbelief, and the glimmer of hope that it could just be one of those internet hoax, as I had seen so many lately. When I saw the "real" news online, I was very sad but I still didn't properly react for two days and then, on the Saturday, I turned the radio on in the afternoon and heard the intro to Purple Rain, and was suddenly overwhelmed by such an uncontrollable flood of tears that I could barely breathe for a minute. Prince is not very often played in the UK, so to hear them play his music all afternoon, even stuff I had never heard any radio play before, was a huge reality check. As I listened to all the songs, I started to feel a heavy fog of sadness growing around me, which hasn't really left me since. Temporary moments of joy only come when I listen to his music and his voice lulls me into amnesia mode.

[Edited 6/17/16 15:37pm]

Woke up in Japan several hours after it had all happened and checked into the Org as I always do. I immediately saw a thread title saying something like "Prince Dead". For a second, I thought it was a sick joke, but I went straight to the BBC website and froze when I saw his picture at the top of the page. I just wanted to throw up.

It appeared on my Twitter timeline. I was saddened instantly and the sadness never went away.

[Edited 6/17/16 3:47am]

I had started that morning by pulling up two Prince songs on my phone, sharing them with the Case Managers I was training. One of the case managers even got up and danced to "When Will We B Paid". I was still on a purple high from the Atlanta shows, it was all I could talk about that whole week. Fast forward to early afternoon and one of the state workers came into the classroom while I was teaching and interrupted class. They never do that and I was confused why she was doing it this time. She put her hand on my shoulder and started lightly rubbing it and handed me her phone. Again, extremely confused and wondered what was wrong. I looked at her phone, read the headline, and handed the phone back to her and said, "No. No. No. I refuse to believe it until I hear it from the man himself." I picked up my phone and began searching other sites, and seeing it being reported everywhere. I threw my phone down on the table and walked out of the room and went off by myself. I think I was just in shock, numb, refusing to believe it.

I began getting emails at my work email from people all around the state telling me I was the first person they thought of, how sorry they were. Even got a text message from my ex-husband telling me he had heard and how sorry he was. I don't know how I made it through the rest of the day, completing the training with the case managers that day. I drove home (an hour drive) and cried the whole way home, banging my fist on the steering wheel. Got home and turned on the news, later that night as I watched CNN I saw my tweet (which Prince retweeted) flash up on the screen, which got the tears really flowing because all I could think was, "I don't want to be a part of that timeline". I called out of work (both jobs) for a few days after that, knowing I would not be able to focus on anything else. I cried all that first night, woke up to swollen eyes, cried all that next day, and the day after that. I have cried off and on since those first days and there is still a part of me that refuses to believe that he is gone. I had reporters contacting me during that time, wanting to know if I had recorded any of the Atlanta shows (I hadn't) and how I felt about being the last person Prince retweeted. I had friends contacting me that I hadn't heard from in years, telling me I was the first person they thought of when they heard the news, asking if I was okay. No, no I was not okay, and no I am still not okay.

my cousins texted me. Prince Dead at 57

I saw it on the news and was like, "Wait, what the actual hell? That's not even a logical news story, don't play."

But it was true. And I kept thinking how does this even happen?

Right here on the Org, followed it in real time when it was first posted there were emergency vehicles at Paisley Park.

The news broke here around 10am here in Nashville with the news stations first saying he was found unresponsive and had been rushed to the hospital. Then an hour or so later they were saying he had passed away but no one knew why or how. From then Nashville musicians known and unknown were flooding facebook, twiiter, instagram and all social media sites.

Llanishenlad said:

My girlfriend posted on Facebook about somebody found unconscious at Princes home. Wasn't watching the news that day, sick of it all politics. Quick turned to CNN and the devastation began.