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Prince's Landlord Seeing Purple

On Saturday Night Live, Fred Armisen plays Prince as a zany eccentric prone to following bursts of peculiar personal inspiration. The real-life Prince may be every bit as susceptible to whimsy -- at least that’s the impression left by a complaint filed (and then retracted, at least temporarily) by NBA player Carlos Boozer. The moral of the story: Rent to rock stars at your own peril!

Boozer owns a mansion in Los Angeles, and it must go to waste during his lengthy basketball season (he plays for the Utah Jazz). It isn’t easy to find tenants willing to shell out $70,000 a month in rent, but Prince fit the bill -- although he stipulated that he could back out of the lease if L.A.’s rainy season made it hard for him to enjoy the residence.

Imagine Boozer’s surprise when he discovered that his tenant had taken design liberties with the 10-bedroom, 11-bathroom humble home. According to the complaint, filed by Boozer’s C Booz Multifamily I LLC, Prince painted the exterior of the mansion with purple stripes, his Prince symbol, and the numbers “3121" -- the title of his new album, which debuted last week at #1 on the Billboard chart. The document, obtained by The Smoking Gun gossip website, goes on to say that Prince ripped out the guest room carpet, cut a large hole in the wall for unspecified purposes, and installed purple monogrammed carpet in Boozer’s master bedroom. The Utah Jazz sometimes wear purple, so maybe Prince was hoping Boozer wouldn't notice.

The Purple One also installed plumbing in one bedroom for beauty salon chairs. C’mon, C Booz, you’re telling us you don’t wanna keep that little bonus amenity?

--The ARTISTdirect Staff
03.31.06