Prince Talks Religious Conversion, Anti-Gay Marriage Stance
share this story
Update 2:50 pm
According to Perez Hilton, Prince is now claiming that he was misquoted in the interview:
Apparently, the interviewer did not even use a recorder when she spoke with His Holy Purpleness, and that when she called his people to fact check, it turned out she had several factual inaccuracies, including a little bit about Prince recovering from hip surgery, which he never even had... What His Purpleness actually did was gesture to the Bible and said he follows what it teaches, referring mainly to the parts about loving everyone and refraining from judgment...
"We're very angry he was misquoted," says our Prince insider.
***PREVIOUSLY***
The New Yorker has an interview with Prince at his new Los Angeles home to talk about a new book, and during it talk turned to religion.
Seven years ago, he became a Jehovah's Witness. He said that he had moved to L.A. so that he could understand the hearts and minds of the music moguls. "I wanted to be around people, connected to people, for work," he said. "You know, it's all about religion. That's what unites people here. They all have the same religion, so I wanted to sit down with them, to understand the way they see things, how they read Scripture."
Prince had his change of faith, he said, after a two-year-long debate with a musician friend, Larry Graham. "I don't see it really as a conversion," he said. "More, you know, it's a realization. It's like Morpheus and Neo in 'The Matrix.' " He attends meetings at a local Kingdom Hall, and, like his fellow-witnesses, he leaves his gated community from time to time to knock on doors and proselytize. "Sometimes people act surprised, but mostly they're really cool about it," he said.Recently, Prince hosted an executive who works for Philip Anschutz, the Christian businessman whose company owns the Staples Center. "We started talking red and blue," Prince said. "People with money--money like that--are not affected by the stock market, and they're not freaking out over anything. They're just watching. So here's how it is: you've got the Republicans, and basically they want to live according to this." He pointed to a Bible. "But there's the problem of interpretation, and you've got some churches, some people, basically doing things and saying it comes from here, but it doesn't. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum you've got blue, you've got the Democrats, and they're, like, 'You can do whatever you want.' Gay marriage, whatever. But neither of them is right."
When asked about his perspective on social issues--gay marriage, abortion--Prince tapped his Bible and said, "God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, 'Enough.' "
Whole interview here
Loading comments… 
First Posted: 12/18/08 Updated: 5/25/11