Nearly a decade after the death of Prince, a former collaborator is shedding light on what he describes as unsettling behavior in the music legend’s final months.
According to exclusive reporting from Page Six, BrownMark, who played bass in Prince’s band The Revolution during the 1980s, said he began noticing signs that something was off long before the singer’s fatal overdose in 2016.
“I knew something was wrong,” BrownMark said. “Something was not right with his memory and his behavior.”
The two had not been in regular contact for years when a mutual acquaintance reached out with an unusual message.
According to BrownMark, he was told Prince had been talking about him and might want to reconnect.
That prediction quickly came true.
“[Prince] says, ‘I want you to fly to Minneapolis. Putting some things together. I want to see if you want to be involved.’”
Despite their complicated history, BrownMark didn’t hesitate.
He left his home in California and flew to Minneapolis, expecting to reunite and begin work on new music.
Instead, he said he was left waiting — alone in a hotel for days — with no contact.
“I don’t have a bat number. I don’t know how to get a hold of [Prince]. I’ve been sitting here. I don’t know what’s going on,” he recalled saying after encountering drummer John Blackwell Jr.
When Prince was informed that BrownMark had arrived, the reaction stunned him.
“‘What? What’s he doing there? Oh, you brought him here?’ And he goes, ‘Oh, I forgot.’”
At that moment, BrownMark said, confirming his concerns.
“That’s when I knew something was wrong. Something was not right with his memory and his behavior.”
Despite the confusion, the two discussed forming a new group and reviving the sound that defined their earlier success.
BrownMark agreed and eventually relocated to Minneapolis.
But even then, he said, Prince appeared disoriented.
“You could see the panic in his face because you can see he just remembered what he had done: ‘Oh man, wait a minute. I moved him here,’” BrownMark said. “His memory was like really, really shot at that point.”
Looking back, BrownMark believes opioid use may have played a role in the singer’s condition.
“Man, [pills] just clouds your memory. And I think that’s what was happening with him because he was heavily relying upon opioids for his pain, for his hip,” he said.
Prince died on April 21, 2016, at his Paisley Park estate after taking counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl.
“He ain’t gonna let nobody see him sweat,” BrownMark added. “He [wasn’t] going to tell anybody.”
The recollections paint a picture of a music icon struggling behind the scenes — even as he continued to maintain the image of control and perfection that defined his career.
