Minnesota Family Recalls When Music Legend Prince Served as Their Childhood Babysitter

A Minnesota family has shared a tender recollection through the StoryCorps oral history project, recounting how the global music icon known as Prince once served as their neighborhood babysitter long before he became one of the most celebrated artists in music history. The intimate memories offer a rare human portrait of Prince Rogers Nelson as a teenager in Minneapolis, years before the release of hits like ‘Purple Rain’ and ‘1999.’

The recollection, preserved through StoryCorps, adds a distinctly ordinary dimension to the story of one of popular music’s most enigmatic figures. Before Prince became known for his electrifying stage presence, genre-defying compositions and flamboyant persona, he was a young man from North Minneapolis navigating a difficult home life. According to numerous biographies, Prince bounced between the homes of his divorced parents and eventually moved in with the family of his close friend André Anderson, later known as André Cymone. During that period, he frequently interacted with neighbors, and as the StoryCorps account reveals, occasionally looked after younger children in the community.

The family’s memories paint a picture of a quiet, attentive young man whose extraordinary musical gifts were already evident even in mundane settings. Stories like these, recorded through StoryCorps, serve as cultural touchstones because they capture the human side of figures who have become almost mythological. For fans, such recollections provide a rare window into the formative years of an artist who was famously private about his personal life, granting few interviews and tightly controlling his public image throughout his career.

In the years following Prince’s sudden death in 2016 from an accidental fentanyl overdose, fans and researchers have continued to piece together the contours of his early life. Paisley Park was converted into a museum shortly after his passing, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors. His estate has released a steady stream of posthumous material from his famously voluminous vault of unreleased recordings. Personal remembrances like the one captured by StoryCorps contribute to a growing archive of community-level history that complements the more formal biographical record, reminding audiences that global icons begin as neighbors, classmates and, occasionally, babysitters.

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