Like a dream come true! Music photographer Kevin Mazur opened up to Us Weekly about what it was like to take a trip to Prince’s Paisley Park home in Chanhassen, Minnesota.
“It was amazing,” the founder of WireImage says. “For me, being a fan and a music lover, it was like a kid going to Disneyland. I was in awe.”
Mazur, who shot Prince multiple times from the 1980s onward, was the first photographer allowed to visit and photograph Paisley Park, the singer’s 55,000-square-foot compound that included his home and recording studio.
“They had me photograph his costumes, and they were like, ‘What costumes do you want to photograph?’” Mazur tells Us. “All of them were hanging there in this giant closet. The only one that wasn’t there was the Purple Rain outfit, because I think that was on display somewhere in an exhibit. But I was like, ‘Give me the raspberry beret!’ and this and that, and they were taking them all out for me and putting them on mannequins.”
Mazur also visited the famed Foo Foo Room where the Purple One kept all of his awards as well as a secret vault. “The vault where he kept his master tapes was in that room,” he explained. “The vault was pretty cool. It had this big purple face on it that was really unique. I’ve never seen anything like it. And then at one end of the hallway, they had the Purple Rain motorcycle.”
The famed photojournalist, who has photographed countless artists including Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga and the Rolling Stones, was also a frequent guest at Prince’s parties in Los Angeles, and even took his wife to the entertainer’s house on one of their first dates.
“We had a great working relationship and I considered him a friend,” he said. “I respected him so much and I think he respected me. He knew I looked out for him. I’d always see him at an awards show and ask if I could take pictures, and if he said no, we’d just hang out and talk and he’d ask how I was. I was in a bad car accident and he’d always remember and ask how I was doing from that. He was genuinely a great guy.”
Mazur tells Us that the “When Doves Cry” singer was the “most photogenic artist I’ve ever photographed.”
“Every moment of his that you captured on film was like no other,” he adds. “He was so unique. There will never be another Prince. There was only one Prince! You can’t even compare him to anybody else.”
