Musician and ex-girlfriend Jill Jones has opened up to the Mirror about her complex relationship with music legend Prince in a fascinating interview. “He was loveable, adorable, but he could be hateful too,” she says.
21:00, 24 Apr 2026Updated 21:37, 24 Apr 2026
Musician Jill Jones has opened up about life in Prince’s orbit (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
When Jill Jones sat down to share her memories of Prince for a new Netflix documentary, she had no idea the firestorm she would unwittingly release. The musician was well placed to speak. She worked with Prince, singing on his masterpiece 1999, and also had a long, complicated relationship with him. But her testimony, along with dozens of others, has never aired.
The whole series, directed by Oscar-winner Ezra Edelman, was dramatically shelved after the singer’s estate decided it would cause “generational harm” to his image. Fingers were then pointed at Jill amid claims she had spoken about Prince violently attacking her.
Now, on the 10th anniversary of his death this week, Jill is ready to reveal what really happened – and why her story, and their relationship, is far more complex than it has been portrayed. “My intention was to talk about the man as he is. He was loveable, adorable, but he could be hateful too,” she says.
So what happened? In 1984, Jill and a friend went to see Prince at a hotel where an argument broke out. Jill was left jealous after he started kissing her friend, prompting her to slap the musician. She claims Prince responded by punching her over and over in the face.
Jill with legend Prince
Jill wanted to press charges but was warned against it by Prince’s circle at the time. Going to hospital too was out of the equation in case the story leaked. “I was told I would ruin his career….they saw him as just money for them. They could make a lot of money. It just shows me how many people benefit,” she says.
Later that year the money-spinning Purple Rain tour was set to commence. “Had I come forward…it wouldn’t have happened,” she says. “But basically, after that, we made up because I had a surgery and he gave me a ton of toys, and this is how the apology was: balloons, toys and candy.” She adds: “It was really hard for us to not be around each other. He always thought I would be there. He would always say: ‘I’m always gonna know you.’”
Jill has been wrestling for more than three decades as to whether to open up about the incident. “I’d been holding on to it for so many years….I think, because I was waiting on an apology,” she admits.
“See, this is the craziest thing with domestic violence: you wait for an apology sometimes from someone that you love, you think they’re going to, and they want to move on and not talk about it, and you allow it.”
Jill says she witnessed violence that growing up, while Prince’s parents, John Nelson and Mattie Shaw, had a volatile relationship. “It was an era of time where men did knock around their wives,” she says. “It was just something that happened.”
Of her own experience, she adds: “It took me years to maybe get over that. But I also forgive him for that, because he’s just a product of a time, although I’m not trying to make excuses.” She also recalls her reaction years later when Prince publicly came out to defend singer Chris Brown after he beat up Rihanna. “I heard that he had given advice to Chris Brown a little bit…and I was like, ‘wow, he must have forgotten,’” she says.
Others have made similar claims about Prince, including late star Sinead O’Connor, who alleged he attacked her at his Hollywood mansion. Jill, who also did backing vocals for Sinead, says she wishes she had spoken out in solidarity, but she wasn’t ready.
“I felt like a coward in so many ways, because I do feel like I should have been there to stand beside her. I never saw anything happen to her, but I could have told my story. But then again, nobody wanted to hear. Nobody cared.”
Prince died ten years ago this week (Image: Getty Images)
For all that, she insists their relationship cannot be reduced to that moment alone. Jill was just a teenager when she first met Prince in 1980 during his Dirty Mind tour, while singing backing vocals for the opening act, Teena Marie.
“I was 17 or 18 and had a mouth on me,” she laughs. “We met in the hallway, and everybody else was like, ‘Oh, nice to meet you,’ but because I was just new to this game, I gave him a lot of shade. From that moment on, it was electric, because he couldn’t believe anyone would be that outrageous.” At the time she had no inkling he would become such a huge megastar, but her mum thought otherwise.
“On tour, my mum said ‘he’s going to be a huge star. You should stop being really rude to him.’ She knew I had a massive crush on this little guy, but I was such a kid.”
Prince later invited Jill to Sunset Sound studios in 1982 to sing backing vocals on 1999 , where she was credited under her initials J.J. She appeared in his videos for 1999 and Little Red Corvette , and later worked with Vanity 6 as a backup singer before moving to Minneapolis as their relationship deepened. Despite releasing her debut self-titled album Jill Jones via Prince’s Paisley Park Records label, she often felt trapped in his orbit
“My career wasn’t heading anywhere,” she says “I was singing for everybody, and feeling very, very neglected in that aspect, because I literally sang behind a curtain.”
Eventually, she walked away, although it wasn’t easy to break the news. “I FedExed back a whole bag of the jewelry he gave to me, and the conversation wasn’t great. It was flaming hot. It was epic,” she says. “I was in New York, and I had fallen in love with someone.”
Jill Jones now
She later moved to Europe, trying to rebuild her life away from the music industry and the pull of Prince’s world. Yet despite everything, their story did not end there. A few weeks before Prince died, she saw him again at an after-party following a US show at 1am. It was the first time they had properly spoken in years.
“It was really great to see him, because his face just lit up,” she says. “I did want to see him, and I thought that it was important to be there, and I was nervous, and it was just like it felt like just slipping a glove right back on your hand.” But something about him unsettled her. “He was so thin and so little,” she says. “I said, ‘Oh my God. I hope we’re not coming to his funeral next.’”
Not long after, her fears were realised.She was watching CNN and speaking to her daughter, who was living in London, when the first reports came through.
“I said, ‘Oh my God, oh my God. They found a body at Paisley Park,’” she recalls. The shock was immense, but so too was the grief for what might have been. She says: “It was devastating because I thought we were all at the point again where we were able to talk to each other now that we’re all so much older.”
That is why she remains so frustrated that the documentary was shelved amid reports the estate found it to be “sensationalized”, and had withheld the use of Prince’s music. For Jill, the truth about Prince was never simple. And trying to erase parts of it, she believes, does him no favours.
“They want to keep him in a little bag….a little category,” she says. “And they’re actually making it more than what it was, because when you deprive people of knowing something, it eventually comes out.”