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Prince’s Ex-Wife Mayte Garcia Remembers Music Legend One Year After Death: ‘He Was One of a Kind’

Never forgotten. Prince’s ex-wife Mayte Garcia remembered the music legend as “one of a kind” in a recent interview, exactly one year after the musician’s untimely death.

“He’s the only man, I don’t know any man who could wear high heels, women’s perfume, eyeliner and heels and be sexy,” she told E! News. “He was one of a kind.”

Related: Inside Prince’s Final Days, Last Performance: He ‘Didn’t Seem Unwell’

The pair, who wed in 1996 and split in 2000, first met when Garcia, 43, was a backup dancer for the ‘80s pop icon.

Prince and his wife Mayte Garci
Prince and Mayte Garcia on June 9, 1999. SINEAD LYNCH/AFP/Getty Images

“I remember I was 18 and I sent him a videotape,” she told E! News. “And he was like, ‘Wow, that was a really great performance, it was hypnotizing.’ And I went, ‘Oh, no. I like him. Oh no, oh no.’”

Garcia added that she and the “Purple Rain” singer were “friends first,” but once they crossed the line into romance, their relationship accelerated quickly.

Related: Most Shocking Celebrity Deaths of All Time

“We were friends and then he became my boss and then it just, the flirtation happened,” she recalled. “We went to the movies all the time. The first date-date that he was like, ‘It’s courting time,’ was when we were engaged.”

Mayte Garcia and Prince
Mayte Garcia and Prince on Dec. 3, 1995. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

The couple shared one son, Amiir, who died of a rare genetic disorder just days after he was born in October 1996. Prince never publicly acknowledged the tragedy.

“It was how he handled it and I respected that,” Garcia said during an interview with Good Morning America earlier this month. “It was really hard, but it was also very liberating and healing [to write about it] because for so many years I held it in.” (Garcia recently released her memoir, The Most Beautiful: My Life With Prince.) 

Related: Celebrity Deaths in 2016: Stars We’ve Lost

“[I know] when we lost Amiir, I read a lot of books that helped me, and I’m hoping that somebody will read this and that it will help them as well,” she said.

Prince died at the age of 57 in April 2016. Nearly two months after his death, officials confirmed that he had died of an accidental overdose of the painkiller fentanyl.

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