Prince’s Estate Slams Trump Campaign After Breaking Promise Not To Play His Music Ever Again

Prince’s estate went on the attack against Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign after they went back on a promise never to play the legendary singer’s music again.

As Trump visited the late singer’s hometown of Minneapolis this week, his iconic song “Purple Rain” could be heard playing at a rally this week in the Minnesota city. As WCCO reported, that situation prompted an immediate reply from the singer’s estate, which used Prince’s official Twitter page to strike back.

As the account noted, the singer’s estate had reached out to Trump’s campaign last year to ask them to stop playing his songs at campaign rallies.

“President Trump played Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ tonight at a campaign event in Minneapolis despite confirming a year ago that the campaign would not use Prince’s music,” Thursday’s tweet read. The social media share also embeded an image of the reply from Trump’s campaign in 2018 promising to cease playing his music.

“The Prince Estate will never give permission to President Trump to use Prince’s songs.”

Aside from being one of Prince’s most iconic songs, “Purple Rain” also became a semi-autobiographical movie about a young singer who rose to fame in Minneapolis despite trying circumstances. The movie was filmed in an around Minneapolis, and the city today honors Prince and maintains close connections to his work.

This is now the second time in recent days that Trump has been ordered to stop playing an artist’s music. As the president faces an impeachment inquiry related to his pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and Biden’s son, his campaign put together a commercial that included the Nickelback song “Photograph.” The video featured a picture of the Bidens with a longtime friend who works in Ukraine. The commercial — which has been attacked as unfounded and misleading — prompted the copyright holder for the song to lodge a complaint, leading to the commercial being taken down from Twitter.

As USA Today reported, what was a setback for the Trump campaign ended up being a boon for Nickelback. After the controversy erupted, digital download sales of the song “Photograph” rose by 569 percent, the report noted.

The song itself has now been turned against Trump, with a conservative group releasing a version that now shows a picture of Trump standing with two associates of his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who were arrested this week on federal campaign finance violations. The two were reportedly an important link to Ukraine and have been subpoenaed by Congress to testify in the impeachment inquiry.