Judith Hill, Prince Protege & Collaborator, Recalls Terrifying Emergency Landing
"...he said it was the hardest thing he’d ever done, to get back into his body like that.”
The details of Prince's final days reveal a man that was in pain, suffering from the aches of decades-old ailments, battling a dangerous addiction to the opioid painkiller, fentynyl. Six days prior to his death, Prince's chartered plane made an emergency landing an hour out from his Paisley Park estate, where he would be found dead less than a week later. Protege, disciple and collaborator, Judith Hill, revealed to the New York Times that she was not only aboard the plane, but the very person who noticed Prince slip out of consciousness and got the ball rolling on landing the plane.
Hill recalls their deeply intimate relationship as creatives, how Prince brought her into the Paisley Park family, delighted that she was not only immensely talented, but came from a family of brilliant musicians. Mom and pop played in her band. She also reveals that she was touring with Michael Jackson when the pop god passed in 2009, how different the two losses impacted her and how it was Prince's guidance that instilled faith in her ability as a solo performer. It'll pull on all of the heart-strings, but it may be the single most detailed account of those scary airborn moments that had us all fearing the worst and is certainly worth the 15 minute read. Her Prince-produced solo album, Back In Time, is out now.
h/t New York Times
