The star’s potent sexuality made him my ‘secret friend’ but, with my career in the arts stalling, his death led me to the life-changing decision to move to Minneapolis and maintain his legacyI distinctly remember the first time I heard Prince.I was a dreamy, artistic child growing up in 80s rural Australia, feeling completely out of place.One day, I turned towards the cassette radio in my bedroom, hearing something totally different to the rock music I had grown up with – something electric and alive.It was Prince.My body moved.

From that moment, he became my secret soul friend, his music carrying a powerful mix of sexuality and spirituality that I didn’t yet have the language for.Songs such as Controversy and Purple Rain felt like permission to be fully expressive, and fully myself.My love for Prince remained as I grew up.I moved to New York to pursue a career in the arts, but never quite fully managed it, ending up as an arts administrator.I supported other artists, organised programmes, lived alongside creativity rather than inside it.

Throughout my life I had wanted to see Prince live, but always hesitated.I came close, hovering over tickets for a show at Madison Square Garden, but didn’t go.After his religious conversion in 2001, I think I was afraid of seeing him changed, diminished from the exciting vision of liberation I held in my imagination.It’s a regret that shaped everything that came next.When he died in 2016, I was in a subway station.

I read the news on my phone and physically stumbled backwards, catching myself against the tiled wall.The grief was overwhelming and immediate.I went home and cried for days, consuming everything Prince-related I could.I combed the city looking for a purple item of clothing, eventually sourcing a purple sequined gown, which became my armour.I wore it from the store straight into the subway, which felt both absurd and right.

Within a week, cinemas across the city were showing Purple Rain.For about a month, I took myself to screenings every few days after work.Sometimes they were packed, other times it was just me and Prince in the room.Within weeks of his death, the idea of visiting Minneapolis, Prince’s home, began to take hold.It didn’t feel logical – Prince was gone, what could I possibly find there now? – but I couldn’t shake it.

So I booked a ticket,From the moment I got in the taxi at the airport, people began telling me their Prince stories,I visited his estate, Paisley Park for the first time, where strangers had gathered at the fence, leaving offerings – flowers, letters, artwork – speaking to one another with refreshing openness,The whole city began to feel enchanted by this shared love and experience,I went back to New York, but couldn’t settle.

I returned to Minneapolis again and again,Within months, I had decided that I was going to relocate,Unlike the rest of my life, where I’d become an administrator rather than an artist, I thought: “What if I just listen to this call this time, and see where this mysterious journey leads?” Finally, about a year after Prince’s death I quit my job, and left my life in New York,I didn’t have a clear plan,I was in the middle of a PhD, researching the role of artists in society, and I shifted my focus entirely towards Prince and his legacy.

In that way, Minneapolis became both my subject and my home.I started collecting stories, noticing the way people were creating their own tributes, their own forms of memorial.That became The People’s Museum for Prince, a grassroots museum I founded, which traces Prince’s transformational impact through the memories of those whose lives he touched.Around the same time, friends connected me to a man who needed a housesitter for his Minneapolis home while he travelled for the summer.The moment we met, we fell in love.

I moved into his house while he was away.When he returned, I didn’t move out.It was intense and overwhelming, and the emotional acceleration mirrored everything else in my life.For a while, it felt like Minneapolis had given me everything at once.Then the relationship ended, in an intense and devastating way.

In the wake of that, I left the city, eventually returning to Australia during the pandemic.But Minneapolis still felt like a second home.Now, at 55, I live between Australia and Minneapolis, continuing the museum, making films – including a documentary short, Dearly Beloved, about my journey connecting with Prince – finishing the work that began there.I came to Minneapolis looking for Prince, tracing the places he had lived, researching his life.Instead, what I found was community and, most importantly, a rediscovery of my artistic self.

I went searching for Prince and found a way back to my own life, and the artist I always dreamed of becoming.Dearly Beloved is currently screening at festivals.A feature film based on the short is in development.You can tell us how a cultural moment has prompted you to make a major life change by filling in the form below or emailing us on cultural.awakening@theguardian.

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