The Untold Truth Of Prince

On the face of it, Prince's childhood home in Minneapolis in many ways offered the perfect environment for his musical development. To begin with, Prince was blessed with a musical family. His mother, Mattie Della Shaw, was a well-respected jazz singer, while his father, John Lewis Nelson, had made a significant impact as a pianist, performing under the name Prince Rogers in a famous trio (per Becoming Prince). However, the future star also suffered numerous traumas which, biographers say, would underpin his transformation into the showman he later became.

But though Prince's father was his great musical inspiration, the two initially had a difficult relationship, with the son feeling unable to play music in his father's presence. Per Becoming Prince, the future star's parents split when he was seven, which had a lasting effect on him: amid the tumult of divorce, Prince desired nothing more than stability in which he could emulate his father's habitual passion for making music. Prince moved around a lot, living for a brief spell with his father following his parents' divorce where he was taught the basics of playing the piano, though he also ran away from home and lived for a time with a neighboring family. However, despite feeling unsettled, the prodigy taught himself to play drums and guitar while still a child, according to Biography.

Despite his later success as a performer, Prince was naturally an introverted child, who suffered bullying at school; he later claimed that it was being teased that made him come out of his shell and show off, per the same source.

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