Prince speculation swirls amid reports of a mysterious drug dealer and the lack of a will
Prince has been gone for six days, and many of the details of his life and death are still shrouded in mystery and twisted up in a barrage of conflicting reports about illness and drug use.
The 57-year-old star was found unresponsive Thursday in an elevator at his suburban Minneapolis estate, Paisley Park. He was last seen alive about 8 the night before and was believed to have been alone all night.
He was cremated on Saturday, after which a group of his “most beloved” family, friends and musicians attended a small, private service.
Here’s the latest from the aftermath of his death.
He died without a will.
Tyka Nelson, Prince’s sister, said Tuesday that her brother didn’t have a will when he died. She asked a Minnesota court to quickly appoint a special administrator to oversee his estate.
The court filing didn’t say how much his estate is worth. Nelson asked that the corporate trust company that provided financial services to Prince for years, Bremer Trust, be named administrator of his estate.
The Associated Press reported that under Minnesota law, if a person dies without a will — and with no surviving parents, children or grandchildren — the next in line to share in the estate are surviving siblings, including half-siblings.
Prince wasn’t married and had no known living children. Nelson is his only full sibling, though he has five half-siblings. Two other half-siblings have died.
Autopsy results won’t be known for at least a month.
Carver County Sheriff Jim Olson said investigators found no indication of suicide or immediate signs of trauma.
Authorities are reviewing Prince’s medical history, including previous hospitalization and pharmaceutical records, Olson said at a press conference. He refused to say whether any prescription drugs were taken from Prince’s home after his death.
“This is certainly a big event internationally and nationally, and I can tell you that we are going to leave no stone unturned with this and make sure the public knows what happened,” Olson said.
Painkiller problem?
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that authorities are focusing on whether painkillers played a part in Prince’s death and in the medical emergency that forced his private plane to land in the middle of the night in Moline, Ill., days before.
The emergency landing on April 15 came just hours after Prince performed two concerts in one night in Atlanta.
The Star-Tribune reported that emergency personnel gave Prince a shot of the opioid antidote Narcan.
Sources told TMZ that Prince was advised to stay in the hospital for 24 hours but he left because there were no private rooms available.
Prince’s longtime lawyer, L. Londell McMillan, told The Associated Press on Monday night that he spoke to Prince the Sunday before he died and that he “was doing prefect.”
McMillan said that while Prince might have taken medication for pain from time to time he was “not on any drugs that would be any cause for concern.”
But the Star-Tribune’s sources say that painkillers might have taken a toll on the singer in his last few weeks.
Michael Padden, a longtime attorney for two of Prince’s half-siblings, now deceased, said his clients told him more than a decade ago that Prince had “substantial” problems with the opioid painkiller Percocet and cocaine.
But former bandmate and friend Sheila E. and others who knew him told the newspaper that she had “never seen him take anything, not even aspirin, in the 38 years I’ve known him.”
Man says he was Prince’s drug dealer
A report that Prince had a longtime drug dealer doesn’t square with the man described by family and friends: a healthy, committed vegan who avoided alcohol and drugs.
A man identified only as Dr. D told London’s The Daily Mail that Prince spent $40,000 at a time on six-month supplies of Dilaudid pills and Fentanyl patches — highly addictive opioid pain killers — for 25 years.
He said Prince suffered from crippling stage fright and couldn’t perform without drugs. He said he sold drugs to Prince between 1984 and 2008.
“He was always a pill man — that’s why nobody ever saw him do drugs,” he told the Daily Mail. “He never shot up, or snorted cocaine.”
A Prince museum?
After Prince died, photographs of the inside of his iconic $10 million Paisley Park recording studio and residence began to surface online.
His brother-in-law told media that there are plans to turn the 50,000-square-foot compound into a memorial site for his fans. Sheila E, who will oversee a future musical tribute for the singer, suggested that the site might be made into a museum.
The Saturday before he died Prince held a dance party in the Paisley Park auditorium, according to CBS Minnesota.
Dr. Prince?
Officials at the University of Minnesota tell CNN might award Prince an honorary doctorate, which they had considered before he died.
The university’s president said the nomination will more than likely be approved by an honors committee, then head to the board of regents and university president in June.
Posthumous hit-maker
Fans who bought 3 million Prince songs and 654,861 albums have helped his estate rack up more than $15 million since his death, reports The New York Post
His albums dominated iTunes Top 10 on Monday. Behind Beyonce’s new “Lemonade” at No. 1, “The Very Best of Prince” owns the next four slots, with “Purple Rain” ranking at No. 5.
Billboard reported on Monday that Purple Rain was the top-selling song of the week, with 122,000 copies sold, according to Nielsen Music survey.
This story was originally published April 26, 2016 at 4:18 PM with the headline "Prince speculation swirls amid reports of a mysterious drug dealer and the lack of a will."