The singer who was mentored by the 'Purple Rain' hitmaker recalls how she tried to revive him to no avail, 'I thought he was gone.'
- Jun 23, 2016
AceShowbiz - Judith Hill was one of the people with Prince when he lost consciousness on a private jet. In an interview with New York Times two months after his death, the singer who was mentored by the "Purple Rain" hitmaker recalled what happened before they made an emergency landing.
"His eyes fixed," she remembered. "Thankfully, I happened to be looking into his face," otherwise she would have thought he was just sleeping. "We knew it was only a matter of time; we knew we had to get down. We didn't have anything on the plane to help him," she added. "I thought he was gone."
Prince was given a shot of Narcan, a drug used to treat opioid overdoses, by paramedics at the airport before he was transported to a hospital. He was "very cooperative" and "serious about getting help," Hill said.
"He wasn't dreary or drowsy or anything," she added. "He wanted to watch Zootopia. He loved those films. I was going to pull it up on my phone. He said: 'No, no, no, not here. We're going to pick a special time and place to watch that.' "
According to Hill, the late singer described his near-death experience as "the hardest thing he'd ever done." He told her, "I 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 said she had "a very intense relationship" with Prince. "I deeply cared for him," she said. "He told me that he loved me and that he would always be there for me."
Despite being close to him, Hill said she was unaware of his struggle with painkillers. "He was quick on his feet," she said. "Never said anything, that this is hurting, never a sign of struggle. That's why it's all very shocking."
Even after the plane incident, he still played it down to his close friends. "He did it because he was concerned, and he wanted to do the right thing for his own body," Hill explained. "And that's the part that breaks my heart, because he was trying. He was trying."
