Prince’s Memoir To Be Released This Fall, Three Years After His Death

The third anniversary of Prince’s untimely death also brings news of the publication of his long-awaited memoir that was announced shortly after the entertainer’s passing. Titled The Beautiful Ones, it will be reportedly published by Random House in the fall, noted The Daily Beast.

New Yorker writer Dan Piepenbring collaborated with the late singer on the book, which is a personal account of how a young boy from Minneapolis became one of the most revered and respected musicians in the music industry, reported TDB.

“The Beautiful Ones is the deeply personal account of how Prince Rogers Nelson became the Prince we know: the real-time story of a kid absorbing the world around him and creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and the fame that would come to define him,” according to a Random House announcement published by The Daily Beast.

The project was originally announced about a month before Prince’s death in April 2016.

Prince’s publishing agent Esther Newberg said in a statement shared to Billboard in 2018 that the singer was very much involved in the process of putting the book together prior to his death. According to Newberg, three editors met with Prince at his Paisley Park home in Minneapolis to discuss the book and begin the collaborative process that would set the project in motion.

Prince reportedly worked hand-in-hand with Piepenbring and personally handwrote over 50 manuscript pages, reported Billboard. Newberg teased the possibility that reproductions of his longhand pages might be included in the book.

The singer’s unexpected death at the age of 57 on April 21, 2016, stunned the entertainment industry. USA Today reported that toxicology findings from Prince’s autopsy report revealed that the singer allegedly had a high concentration of fentanyl in his body upon his death. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is reportedly 50 times more powerful than heroin.

Prince was found alone and unresponsive in an elevator at his Paisley Park estate on April 21.

The BBC reported that Prince’s family sued his doctor over his opioid addiction. A lawsuit filed in Minnesota alleged that Dr. Michael Schulenberg “failed to appropriately evaluate, diagnose, treat and counsel Prince for his recognizable opioid addiction, and further failed to take appropriate and reasonable steps to prevent the foreseeably fatal result of that addiction.”

Three years after his death, the estate of the late singer remains unsettled, reported Inside Edition.

There are still debates over whom should inherit Prince’s $200 million estate. Inside Edition reported that it was a judge who chose his six siblings: Tyka Nelson, Norrine Nelson, Sharon Nelson, John Nelson, Alfred Jackson, and Omarr Baker to be his heirs.

The singer had no known children at the time of his death. He was married to Mayte Garcia and together the couple had one child, a son named Amiir Nelson who died from a rare genetic disorder called Pfeiffer Syndrome. The couple divorced four years after their son’s death. Prince later married Manuela Testolini in 2001. The couple separated in 2005 and divorced in May 2006.