INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

‘Purple Rain’ House Secretly Bought By Prince Months Before His Death

By Angie Willerton
Published on: 15:50 PST, Jul 20, 2016

The Purple Rain house had been quietly purchased by Prince eight months prior to his death. The little white house where The Kid lived in the 1984 classic Purple Rain may have been purchased for sentimentality reasons.

According to NBC News, real estate agent Deborah Larson, from the firm Coldwell Banker Burnet, received a call from a woman inquiring about the house. The three-bedroom, single-family home located in Minnesota at 3420 Snelling Ave, which was listed as needing repairs, was sold for $117,000 cash last August.

Larson states that she was originally weary of the offer presented due to the amount of false inquiries by Prince fans. At that time, she didn’t know that it was Prince who was purchasing the Purple Rain house until she received the signed contract with NPG Music Publishing showing it as the one making the purchase. NPG Music Publishing was created by Prince and is the controlling publishing house for all of Prince’s classic music. After a lengthy battle in the mid 1990s for controlling power of his music, Prince had finally gained control in 2014 of all his works.

As to what will come of the house, Larson told the Tribune, “I don’t think he had a plan. I think he just wanted it.”

The home was originally made popular as the house where The Kid lived in Purple Rain. The Kid, played by Prince, is the fictional front man for the Minneapolis-based rock group the Revolution who experiences an exceptional amount of abuse within his home life, and goes on to create the classic song Purple Rain. Purple Rain is a 1984 semi-autobiographical American rock musical where the score was fully written by Prince. The film Purple Rain won an Academy Award for best original song score, and the album of the same name sold 13 million units in the United States alone, earning a Diamond Award from the Recording Industry Association of America. Prince also won Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group and Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or TV Special for the song Purple Rain.

The purchase of the iconic Purple Rain house was sight unseen. It is believed that Prince had not stepped foot in the house. As People noted, he has never lived in the house nor had he made any renovations to the house since its purchase in August 2015.

There has been no mention as to what will be done with the house now that it is part of Prince’s estate, since his death in April at the age of 57. The Purple Rain house took barely a few hours to purchase and was completed mostly by phone. The estate is estimated to be worth $250 million and is currently being held by Prince’s bank Bremer Trust due to the lengthy court battle by multiple claimants.

Prince’s other estate, known as Paisley Park, is believed to be up for consideration as part of a tourist attraction. It has been recently reported by the Inquisitr that Prince may have been working on converting Paisley Park into a museum prior to his death, which would include a variety of memorabilia from his career. One of the items listed as possibly being included in the museum is the iconic motorcycle from Purple Rain. Whether the belief that Prince was collecting memorabilia related to his career or not is still to be confirmed.

Deborah Larson commented, “Their thing was they saw it on social media, they got wind of it and probably wanted to secure it as fast as possible to decide what to do later.”

Maybe in the future, following the lengthy terms of the court battle, we will finally know what Prince had envisioned for the Purple Rain house.

[Photo by Liu Heung Shing/AP Images]

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