A Jewish couple from Minnesota will never forget the day Prince showed up at their door.
“My first thought is, ‘Cool, cool, cool. He wants to use my house as a set. I’m glad! Demolish the whole thing! Start over!’” a woman, who went by the name Rochelle, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2003.
The pop icon wasn’t there to destroy their house: He was trying to find converts to Jehovah’s Witnesses, the religion he joined in 2001. The Los Angeles Times detailed his membership at the the St. Louis Park Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, where he was known as Brother Nelson.
Prince was a persistent proselytizer. When it became clear he was there to convert the couple, Rochelle said, “You know what? You’ve walked into a Jewish household, and this is not something I’m interested in.’” She said Prince replied: “Can I finish?” before staying 25 minutes and leaving a pamphlet.
Congregant Josephine Parker told the Times that Prince was a gentle soul and “mild spirit.” The faith holds that Jesus was a savior but was lesser to God, and that the dead will be resurrected in these finals days of our existing civilization.
“He was accepted as our brother,” Parker told the Times.”I look forward to the time we can welcome him back on the Earth.”
Another woman told the Daily Mail that Prince once knocked on her door in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, where he introduced himself as Brother Nelson.
“Excuse me, but has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like Prince?” she said, to which she remembers him replying, “It has been said.”