{"id":14940,"date":"2016-02-17T09:57:56","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T14:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ohsodj.com\/?p=14940"},"modified":"2016-02-17T09:57:56","modified_gmt":"2016-02-17T14:57:56","slug":"prince-dedicates-performance-to-former-girlfriend-vanity-after-her-passing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ohsodj.com\/?p=14940","title":{"rendered":"Prince Dedicates Performance to Former Girlfriend Vanity After Her Passing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ohsodj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/prince_rolling.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-14941\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ohsodj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/prince_rolling.jpg?resize=250%2C278\" alt=\"Prince_Rolling\" width=\"250\" height=\"278\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-14941\" \/><\/a>On Monday (Feb 15), Australian fans witnessed a very personal and emotional Prince on the first night of his Piano &amp; Microphone tour in the wake of learning that his ex-girlfriend and early collaborator Vanity had just died at age 57.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m trying to stay focused, [but] it\u2019s a little heavy for me tonight,\u201d Prince said to the crowd at the State Theatre in Melbourne, according to a review by News Corp Australia. He paid tribute to the real-life Denise Matthews throughout the performance, picking out several early-\u201880s tunes in dedication to his time with her and at one point changing the dramatic \u201cdown on my knees\u201d lyric at the end of \u201cBeautiful Ones\u201d to, \u201cDenise\u2026 Denise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A native of Niagra Falls, Ontario,  Vanity was a model when Prince picked her up in 1981 to lead the all-female, lingerie-clad trio Vanity 6. The group landed the hit &#8220;Nasty Girl&#8221; and opened the 1999 Tour but would only last as long as her romantic relationship with Prince.<\/p>\n<p>In a lighter moment in Monday&#8217;s concert, Prince recounted a somewhat self-deprecating story about one of their heated arguments before they broke up in 1983, when he threatened to throw Vanity in the pool. \u201cYou can\u2019t throw me in the pool, you\u2019re too little,\u201d she retorted. So Prince asked his 6-foot bodyguard Chick to toss her in for him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI probably shouldn\u2019t be telling this story, but she\u2019d want us to celebrate her life and not mourn her,\u201d he said. \u201cHer and I used to love each other deeply. She loved me for the artist I was. I loved her for the artist she was trying to be. She and I would fight. She was very headstrong, \u2018cuz she knew she was the finest woman in the world. She never missed an opportunity to tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>On Monday (Feb 15), Australian fans witnessed a very personal and emotional Prince on the first night of his Piano &amp; Microphone tour in the wake of learning that his ex-girlfriend and early collaborator Vanity <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ohsodj.com\/?p=14940\" title=\"Prince Dedicates Performance to Former Girlfriend Vanity After Her Passing\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14941,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[807,1009,1343],"class_list":["post-14940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-matrix","tag-prince","tag-vanity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7qLKy-3SY","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ohsodj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/prince_rolling.jpg?fit=250%2C278&ssl=1","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ohsodj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ohsodj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ohsodj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ohsodj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ohsodj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ohsodj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ohsodj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ohsodj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ohsodj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ohsodj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}