The world dons the color purple to mourn Prince

There’s a story Kesha likes to tell about that one time she broke into Prince’s house in 2009 to give him a demo.

It was easy, she told Jimmy Fallon in July 2014.

“I cruised up in my dead grandpa’s car, and I get out and there’s a gardener in the front yard so I was like, ‘Here’s five dollars and don’t make a thing about it, I’m just going to slide right under this gate,’” she said.

After crawling under the fence she found an unlocked door, which she took as an invitation. And inside?

“Everything was purple velvet,” she said. “I was very pleased that my fantasy had come true and that there was, in fact, purple velvet everywhere.”

Purple was Prince’s signature hue, the color of limos he rode in, cars and motorcycles he owned, notebooks he carried stashed with ideas, and oh so many beautiful stage costumes.

Once, he painted an $12 million rental property purple.

“You know how most rental agreements have that clause that requires permission to pound holes in the wall or apply a fresh layer of paint? Prince must not have read his lease very closely, because in 2006 he painted the exterior of his rented 10-bedroom, 11-bath West Hollywood mansion purple, installed purple carpeting, and painted his symbol on the outside of the house,” writes City Pages.

Screenwriter William Blinn reportedly wanted to use the name “Dreams” for the movie we now know as “Purple Rain,” but Prince insisted that the word “purple” be in the title.

We know who won that argument.

But why the color purple? It doesn’t seem that he ever addressed this eccentricity publicly, though clearly his fans believe he was more than worthy of a color historically associated with royalty.

Some people think it might have had something to do with his love of his hometown Minnesota Vikings, who wear purple and gold. In 2010 Prince wrote a fight song for the team called “Purple and Gold.”

On Thursday, as fans and followers mourned his death, they wrapped their wounded souls in the color purple.

The mourning took on monumental stature.

At Buzzfeed, the hallways were bathed in the color of grape juice. Snapchat issued a special filter of purple tear drops for sad Prince fans.

Fans asked NPR to go purple for Prince, too. NPR has obliged.

The Minnesota Wild hockey team added purple to its logos on all its social media platforms.

The Minnesota Twins - who play Prince’s 1994 hit “Let’s Go Crazy” after every team home run - paid colorful homage as well, lighting up their field in purple.

An image on the Jumbotron read: “Good night Sweet Prince.”

A team rep told TMZ that the Twins are thinking about ways to honor the singer at its next home game.

“I'm sure (the tribute) will include a lot of Prince music. I don't know if it'll happen, but were talking about instead of a moment of silence, having a moment of sexy,” the rep said.

And singer Lupe Fiasco asked his fans to wear purple to his Thursday concert.

This story was originally published April 21, 2016 at 4:02 PM with the headline "The world dons the color purple to mourn Prince."