Prince allegedly would only eat pancakes while he stayed at a Los Angeles hotel in the early 2000s.
In a Vanity Fair oral history, Jason Pomeranc, cofounder of Thompson Hotels Group, claimed that Prince would make himself at home.
“Prince would come in and just start playing a random solo show at Teddy’s,” Pomeranc said. “Until four or five in the morning.”
Pomeranc said that Prince did so “just because he felt like it.”
“And these things were regular occurrences,” added Pomeranc. “If you weren’t at the Prince pop-up show or you weren’t [there] when Courtney Love showed up, it was gone.”
Pomeranc also said that Prince would stay in the penthouse. The staff “had to redecorate to his specifications of white shag rugs and purple.”
He noted that Prince “would only eat pancakes for days” while he stayed here.
Ally Pankiw, the director of Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery – The Untold Story, recalled Prince’s surprise performance with Sheryl Crow at the festival in 1999.
Pankiw said that Prince was constantly turned down as a performer.
“He had really outsized requests,” she told PEOPLE at the time. “And Lilith was very equitable. Everyone had the same-sized dressing room, and no one had this crazy rider.”
Pankiw noted that everyone at Lilith Fair “got the same amount of stage time and things were very collaborative and equal.”
“His demands didn’t match that,” she said.
When Prince had the opportunity to duet with Crow on “Every Day Is a Winding Road,” he relinquished his demands.
“He was like, ‘Fine, I won’t need any of that. I just want to come play, Lilith. I think that was surprising, just how mainstream and cool it was. And that people who actually worked in music understood its value and how cool the performers and the artists were there,” said Pankiw.