Few actors and performers were as iconic as Prince, and everything he did felt bigger than life. This goes for those who knew him on a more personal level as well, and while you might not have known, that group includes actress and singer Kristin Chenoweth. Chenoweth recently appeared on the DragCast, and during their conversation, she was asked about her interactions with Prince. She told the story of their first date and the sweet friendship that formed after, but as you can see from her story, it took a minute to believe Prince actually wanted to meet her in the first place.
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“Oh my goodness. Like, I loved him okay, and he loved me, but I don’t mean in love,” Chenoweth said. “We loved each other. I was doing Pushing Daisies and my manager called me and said ‘Prince would like to meet with you’, and I was like ‘oh, that’s hilarious, yeah right’. And then finally she was like ‘no, I’m serious, this is Ruth, Prince’s assistant’s number, please call’”.
Chenoweth eventually called and ended up being invited to dinner, but she didn’t expect to be the only one attending.
“So I called and they were like ‘Prince would like to have you over for dinner’, and I’m thinking they must mean there are going to be other people there or whatever. Now this was when he had changed his name to the symbol. I was doing Pushing Daisies and I had a deal with Sony Classical record label, and I was doing my thing and I went over there in like jeans and my GAP sweatshirt because they said it was like casual, you know, and…it’s just me. It’s just me at dinner,” Chenoweth said.
“He comes in and I’m in his library waiting for him and I hear click click click click. It was him in his shoes coming down the hallway which was forever,” Chenoweth said. “It was the biggest house. I could go into more detail but I’ll just say meeting him, when he hugged me and said ‘I love you. I don’t know what I even mean, but I love you and I want to help you I want to be a guide in your life’. I was like ‘I love you too’. It’s weird, the minute we started talking, we had the same faith. He was a Christian person too, but we also had the same struggle, because we’re in show business and what does that look like and judgment.”
“We had the funniest talk about age because he was a Jehovah’s Witness and I asked him ‘how old are you?’ and he goes ‘I don’t know.’ I was like ‘whaaaat, what year were you born?’ and I think that’s probably why he liked me, because I just talked with him. And then I told him about my age and he said ‘age is nothing but a number and you shouldn’t get caught up in it,” Chenoweth said. “I thought that’s right but I’m still going to have my birthday cake you know.”
Prince surprised her when he wanted to watch one of Chenoweth’s performances, and afterward shared some priceless advice.
“So he goes ‘can I show you something that inspires me and I said ‘oh yeah’, so he took me down to his movie room and he played this opera I was in for Great Performances by PBS called Candy, and he played on his big-screen Glitter and Be Gay,” Chenoweth said. “I said ‘no, we don’t need to watch this you know’ and he said ‘this is what I’m saying, I cannot believe’…this is what Prince said to me. I’m just saying, I’m not saying this about myself. He said ‘there’s nobody like you, and you have to remember as you continue in your career, there’s nobody like you, so that means that sometimes things aren’t always going to work out on your behalf, but sometimes it’s going to because nobody is like you’, and I thought wow, thank you for that. That was such a good gift and you know what? I’ve appreciated it a lot since.
“Then he said do you want to see my guitar collection and I said yes,” Chenoweth said. “Then I saw his guitar collection, which was vast, and then we become friends. I mean we had another maybe date, and then I think we just were friends, you know. That’s my Prince story. I cried when he passed away. I miss him.”
That’s is definitely an amazing story, and you can hear even more from it on the full podcast.
