Eddie Murphy Remembers Prince’s ‘Surreal’ Rollerskating Party
When you were hanging out with Prince, anything could happen at any time, as Eddie Murphy remembered a late-night trip to go rollerskating on The Tonight Show yesterday (Dec. 20)
"It was like two or three in the morning," he began (see video below), "and we're at his house and Prince goes, 'Who wants to go roller skating?' It was like, 'What?'"
So Murphy, Prince, Questlove -- who confirmed the story from his drum stool -- Larry Graham and a few others went to a roller rink. If the idea of rollerskating with Prince after midnight wasn't crazy enough, Prince infused the event with his own bit of flair.
"You know how some sneakers, they would have, when you walked they would light up?" Murphy continued. "He had skates that, when he skated they would light up. ... It was surreal."
Murphy and Prince were neighbors for a spell, and Murphy recalled another late-night encounter with him. "My chef was leaving at, like, two in the morning once," he said, "and a car goes by. You know, purple car and the music, and he's like, 'Wow, that's Prince.' And a hubcap comes off, and it just kind of falls, and the car keeps going. [The chef] picks the hubcap up and it's got the Prince thing on the hubcap. And the car goes and makes a big U-turn and comes back. And Prince says, 'Can I have my hubcap back?'"
Of course, Murphy had to have expected such late-night adventures with Prince, given the famous Chappelle's Show sketch where Eddie, his brother Charlie, Prince and others followed up an evening of clubbing with basketball and pancakes. Prince confirmed that the evening took place.
"That's a true story, by the way," he said. "I didn't make them, but we had pancakes. I loved it; it was great."