This was published 9 years ago

Prince dead: Music icon dies at age of 57

Lucy Rickard, Daniel Fallon and Josephine Tovey

Updated April 22, 2016 — 4:59pm,first published April 22, 2016 — 4:13am

Summary

5.23pm on Apr 22, 2016

The Purple Reign has come to an end

It is still several hours before a new day dawns in Prince's hometown of Minneapolis, and his friends and family will go on without him, mourning their overwhelming loss.

Medical examiners are expected to carry out an autopsy on Friday (local time). A cause of death is not expected to be released for several days.

We are winding up our live coverage of today's sad news, and the outpouring of grief for the iconic musician.

You can read Michael Idato's wrap here: walks us through the day's event and the world's response here: Prince dead, the Purple Reign is over

4.48pm on Apr 22, 2016

'the man who made this 12 year old kid feel proud to be a freak'

By AAP

Australians today have remembered their many and varied brushes with the pop superstar:

"He was very reclusive, especially at that time in his life, so we had this list of rules that we had to adhere to like `Don't look Prince in the eye, don't approach him and don't talk to him."

-ARIA-Award winning singer Jenny Morris

"The greatest live act I ever saw. Genius, poet, sexy mother f***er. RIP Prince."

- actor Russell Crowe

"It makes me happy the man who made this 12 year old kid feel proud to be a freak, who never conformed to gender norms and refused to be a slave to the old corrupt ways of the music industry left this earth giving the finger to conformity. You can't find a single one of his recordings on YouTube or Spotify today. He was an artist to the very last second of his life."

- Singer Darren Hayes

"So honoured to have been associated with you for so many years. A true true icon of the music business. Hard to imagine you were only with us in Australia a few weeks ago with those amazing piano and microphone shows."

- Promoter Paul Dainty

Prince: In the 1990s, he was in open conflict with the music industry.

4.26pm on Apr 22, 2016

Skipper and epilespy: Prince's childhood

Prince Rogers Nelson was called "Skipper" as a kid growing up in Minneapolis in the 1960s.

His father, John Lewis Nelson, was a pianist and songwriter and named his son after his stage name, Prince Rogers.

Young Prince wrote his first song on his father's piano when he was just seven-years-old.

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"I was born epileptic and I used to have seizures when I was young," he said in a 2009 interview on PBS.

"My mother and father didn't know what to do or how to handle it, but they did the best they could with what little they had," he said.

"My mother told me one day I walked in to her and said, 'Mom, I'm not going to be sick anymore,' and she said, 'Why?' and I said, 'Because an angel told me so'."

"From that point on, I've been having to deal with a lot of things — getting teased a lot in school — and early in my career I tried to compensate for that by being as flashy as I could and as noisy as I could."

3.42pm on Apr 22, 2016

Definitive cause of death will take days

Carver County chief sheriff's deputy Jason Kamerud said foul play "is neither suspected nor not suspected".

Kamerud told The Associated Press it's simply too early in the investigation. He said he was not sure how long it would take to process the death scene because of the size of the compound.

He said the medical examiner typically takes a few days to have preliminary findings, and typically weeks for toxicology results.

"The body of Prince Rogers Nelson has been received by Midwest Medical Examiners Office in Ramsey, MN ... an autopsy will be performed tomorrow [Friday]," the medical examiner's office said in a statement.

3.34pm on Apr 22, 2016

Recap: Prince overdosed days before death, TMZ reports

Prince was treated for a drug overdose six days before his death, according to celebrity news rag TMZ.

The music icon's private jet made an emergency landing hours after he performed in Atlanta. He was released from hospital three hours later.

At the time his reps said he had contracted the flu.

Prince was found dead in the elevator of his studio compound in suburban minneapolis on Thursday (local time).

Police deputies made the discovery after they were called to a medical emergency. They performed CPR but were unable to revive him.

3.11pm on Apr 22, 2016

Why prince can't be found on Spotify

If you're yearning to hold your own mournful tribute by plugging in your earphones and drifting away to your favourite Prince albums, Spotify can't help you.

Prince pulled his work from the streaming service in favour of the Jay-Z-backed Tidal last year, which claims to pay artists more royalties than any other platform.

At the time Prince said it was important to support African-Amercian-owned projects.

"Tidal is a new company, it's brand new," Prince told Ebony magazine last year.

"They're just getting their footing, and I think when there's a company like that, or [Oprah Winrey's] OWN network - situations where we finally get into a position to run things - we all should help," he said.

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You can read more from that interview here, as well as the backlash after Spotify tweeted a tribute to the iconic artist that shunned them.

2.45pm on Apr 22, 2016

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2.25pm on Apr 22, 2016

When Prince played the guitar for Jenny Morris

"What are you going to say, no?" laughs Morris. "But he didn't play that night and I thought, oh well he's changed his mind about that. But about a week later we were playing Saved Me and I heard this amazing guitar and I looked side stage and he was sitting on an amp, plugged in, and he was playing along."

Read Bernard Zuel's story here.