Protégée says Prince was 'hearing voices from afar' during flight blackout
A Prince protégée who on the singer's flight the night he lost consciousness says she was "very freaked out" during that fateful moment, after which he told her that during his blackout he was "hearing voices from afar" and had to fight to "get back into his body."
In an interview with the New York Times, singer Judith Hill discusses how everything went down that day in April when the plane made an emergency landing in Illinois. Hill says she was talking to Prince when he suddenly fainted. "His eyes fixed," she tells the Times.
Hill alerted Prince's longtime aid Kirk Johnson, and then they told the pilot. "We knew it was only a matter of time; we had to get down,” she said. “We didn’t have anything on the plane to help him.”
You May Also Like
Paramedics met them at an emergency landing spot in Moline, Ill., and Prince was revived with a shot of Narcan, a lifesaving opiate antidote.
At the Trinity Moline Hospital, Prince was conscious and speaking, which relieved Hill -- who "thought he was gone." He eventually got back to his regular self at the hospital, not "dreary or drowsy," she says. He told her he was alive "by God's grace," and said he "had to fight for my life."
"'I remember hearing your voices from afar and saying to myself, ‘Follow the voices, follow the voices, get back in your body, you gotta to do this,’" Hill recalls him saying. "And he said it was the hardest thing he’d ever done, to get back into his body like that.”
The pair were collaborators, working closely together for the last two years. She spent much of her time at Paisley Park and opened shows for him. Prince also co-produced her 2015 debut album Back in Time, prepping her for superstardom.
“Now he’s gone, and I realize I was leaning on him a lot,” she said. “And that’s what’s scary. I’m on my own.”
Prince's death only days later was eventually ruled an overdose of the painkiller fentanyl. Despite their close relationship, Hill had no idea about his addiction.
“I only know what everyone knows about his pain -- I read about it,” she said. "He was quick on his feet. Never said anything, that this is hurting, never a sign of struggle. That’s why it’s all very shocking.”
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Yohana Desta was the senior film reporter for Mashable. She is a Northern Virginia native and an American University grad. She enjoys carefully curating her Instagram account and can often be found reading books, going to concerts, watching movies and learning way too much about pop culture.
