Already have an account?
Get back to the

Prince Demanded the Kardashians Be Axed From His ‘New Girl’ Episode, Says Zooey Deschanel

Get off the stage … and the screen. Zooey Deschanel stopped by Conan on Monday, May 9, and, while recalling the late Prince’s cameo on Fox’s New Girl back in 2014, she essentially confirmed the late “Purple Rain” singer’s distaste for the Kardashian family.

Deschanel, 36, recalled the star-studded episode, which included cameos from L.A. Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw, swimsuit models Alessandra Ambrosio and Ana Beatriz Barros and the Purple One himself.

Related: PHOTOS: Celebrity Feuds: The Biggest Ever!

“He spent a lifetime cultivating mystique,” Deschanel recalled to Conan O’Brien on Monday. “And then one September day three years ago maybe I got an email from his manager saying he liked watching the show and wanted to come on.”

Prince and Zooey Deschanel
Prince and Deschanel on New Girl.

At the time, the seven-time Grammy winner reviewed the script of celebrities who were previously booked to show up at his onscreen party — but some of those names weren’t exactly welcome. “Someone was friends with some of the Kardashians and had made a phone call and they had kindly come on to shoot a kind of cameo part,” Deschanel recalled. “It turns out that someone from Prince’s camp said ‘Who are the celebrities? I hope it’s not a Kardashian.'”

Related: PHOTOS: Prince Remembered: 15 of His Most Iconic Fashion Moments

The “When Doves Cry” singer was so bent on not having any Kardashians appear on the episode that he even demanded a makeshift in-house bonfire, where production assistants burned the reality stars’ portion of the scripts. “I felt so bad,” Deschanel said. “Because obviously everyone had gone out of their way to be there on that day, but Prince was running the show.”

Keeping Up With The Kardashians
Keeping Up With The Kardashians cast

This wasn’t Prince’s first confrontation with a Kardashian. After the singer’s death, a painfully awkward throwback video of Prince and Kim Kardashian went viral. In it, the music icon told the Selfish author to “get off the stage” after she failed to dance and sing with him during his February 2011 concert at Madison Square Garden in NYC.

Related: PHOTOS: 10 Times Kim Kardashian Got Mad on Social Media and Other Places

Days later, Kardashian sort of addressed the strange encounter on Instagram. “I will always remember this moment with one of my favorite artists!” Kanye West’s wife wrote, alongside a pic of her with Prince on stage. “I was so star struck I froze! RIP Prince.”

Prince died at age 57 on April 21, in his Paisley Park compound in Chanhassen, Minnesota. His autopsy results are still pending.

 

In this article

Got a Tip form close button
Got a tip for US?
We're All Ears for Celebrity Buzz!