I don’t want to give away my age, but in junior high, I was obsessed with Prince. I must have seen “Purple Rain” 10 times, listened to the soundtrack non-stop, and even started wearing purple clothes and lace gloves. Hey, don’t judge me!

Somehow, Prince has aged since then. The funky pop singer is now 46, and all those years of sexy dancing have taken a toll on his body - specifically, his hips.

Reports surfaced about a year ago that decades of dancing in those high heels the ladies love caused serious damage to one of his hips and that he needs a replacement. That’s a pretty big deal considering that Prince’s stage show has long been a James Brown-styled affair, full of spins, splits and bumping and grinding against pianos, microphone stands, and other inanimate objects. It’s pretty tough to do those things with a bad wheel.

[From ESPN News]

Now, Prince is going to have the hip replaced in a major surgery so he can avoid walking with a limp and a cane. Because that would not be funky.

Pop legend Prince is having a secret HIP REPLACEMENT at the age of just 49—after being crippled by years of sexy dancing.

The pint-sized US star would develop a severe limp and have to use a WALKING STICK without surgery.

So he is booking himself into a private hospital. Aides are keeping his diary clear for two months to recover—but they’re not letting on why he cannot work in that time.

During the two-hour op—more common for OAPs—the Purple Rain singer will have the ball and socket of his damaged hip taken out and titanium replacements cemented in.

A source said: “For months Prince has complained of pain every time he moves.

“He is totally crushed as he knows he will never be the same again.”

[From News of the World]

I hope the surgery goes well and we see Prince back to doing splits, grinding and spinning very soon. And as a long time fan, I don’t even mind if he does it without the high heels. As long as he’s not wearing, you know, Crocs or something.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Prince is shown performing at London Fashion week on 9/19/07, thanks to PRPhotos.

Vanity Fair canceled their Oscar party a month ago. This was a huge deal in Hollywood, as that party was THE party of the Oscars. It was very “seen and be seen.” Say that in a snooty voice and you get the picture. If you spent too much time at any other party, you weren’t someone to be bothered with. Vanity Fair did this for two reasons, one official, and one not so much. The official spiel was that they were doing it in solidarity with the (then) striking writers. The unofficial reason was that everyone assumed the Oscars would either be canceled, announced in a press conference format, or held in the usual way but without writers so it would really, really suck. And though the writers are back, the party is still canceled. So what will our dear celebs do to keep themselves entertained and pleasantly drunk? Well luckily Madonna and Prince are hosting competing parties that are supposedly very A-list. Talk about a battle of the divas.

One contender to fill this black-tie social vacuum is the party Madonna, her manager Guy Oseary and Demi Moore have put together at the last minute.

Whether this affair becomes an annual event hasn’t been decided.

The party, to be held in a home in the Westside hills, will begin around 9 p.m. A few hundred people are invited, although this number will probably expand. One person who’s seen the guest list said, “Everybody’s on it. It gives the A-list Vanity Fair crowd someplace to go to. It will probably be pared down to where it’s 85% talent, not a lot of suits.”

But even if this party skims off some of the celebrity cream, the Governors Ball will still be the major draw. “It’s the biggest game in town,” said one exec. “This is going to put the glamour back into the ball.”

[From Variety]

But just in case you’re not a fan of Madonna or Demi, there’s always Prince’s backup party. Though something tells me if you don’t like Madge, you probably don’t like Prince either. No word on the dress for the event, though I’m guessing it’s something hokey like “Purple Tie.”

The diminutive divo has quietly cornered the market on exclusive awards parties. One source familiar with the RSVP list says names include “Katie and Tom, Will Smith, Salma and Penelope.”

While previous parties have been held in hotel suites, this year’s will take place at Prince’s new home in Benedict Canyon. But not everyone has scored a golden ticket.

Leven Rambin gushed at the W magazine party at Sunset Tower that she had just been invited. (And for more on her controversial new role in “Lipstick Jungle,” check out my Oscars blog.)

But across town at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Academy Award nominee Ruby Dee was being honored by Black Enterprise magazine, the party was news to her.

[From Gatecrasher]

Oooohh, the drama! How can everyone’s party really be the most exclusive? Everyone claims they’re only inviting the A-list, yet there’s hundreds of people coming – they can’t all be A. Somehow Tara Reid always ends up at one of those things, which instantly demotes the whole fiesta down to C-list. In other (happy) Oscar news, Paris Hilton has been banned this year, as confirmed by multiple media outlets. Supposedly she “cried hot, salty tears” according to an oft-quoted source. Doesn’t that just make you feel like all is right with the world?

It turns out Prince fancies himself an artist. I fancy him a giant, shrieking hamster with a funny shaped guitar who used to have a symbol for a name. Well, the precious “artiste” is flaming mad at the internet. He’s filing suit against YouTube, eBay, and a bunch of other big internet sites to “reclaim his art on the Internet.” I really think it’s pretentious of him to call what he does art, but for some reason I have a real hatred of Prince that I’m going to try to push aside while I write this article. Prince thinks that a site like YouTube can keep his videos off the internet, because they can keep other equally offensive content off their site.

“YouTube … are clearly able (to) filter porn and pedophile material but appear to choose not to filter out the unauthorized music and film content which is core to their business success,” a statement released on his behalf said.

[From Yahoo]

If YouTube can filter out offensive, useless crap like porn, why can’t they filter out offensive, useless crap like Prince’s videos? Whatever PR flaky wrote that statement was just asking to be made fun of. Prince is really biting the hand that feeds him. When was the last time he had a hit album or even a hit single? I think he should take whatever crumbs he can get. YouTube can also be a great way for an artist to market and promote themselves for next to nothing. And frankly, that could only help Prince.

“YouTube responded by saying it was working with artists to help them manage their music on the site. ‘Most content owners understand that we respect copyrights, we work every day to help them manage their content, and we are developing state-of-the-art tools to let them do that even better,’ said YouTube chief counsel Zahavah Levine. ‘We have great partnerships with major music labels all over the world that understand the benefit of using YouTube as another way to communicate with their fans.’”

[From Yahoo]

Along with YouTube, Prince is suing eBay and a website called Pirate Bay, a torrent-based site that lets users illegally download music, movies, games, and applications. I understand suing Pirate Bay, as they help you search for illegal content. Torrents are kind of confusing, but my best, quick summary is that the sites you find torrents on don’t host them, and you download the content in small packets of information from several places. In terms of eBay… that seems a little unwise. They’re not handing out intellectual property for free or anything. People have apparently been using Prince’s image on coffee mugs, wall clocks, mouse pads, and other equally useless crap that no one cares about.

“‘Prince strongly believes artists as the creators and owners of their music need to reclaim their art,’ the statement added. British company Web Sheriff has been hired to help coordinate the action. ‘In the last couple of weeks we have directly removed approximately 2,000 Prince videos from YouTube,’ said Web Sheriff managing director John Giacobbi. ‘The problem is that one can reduce it to zero and then the next day there will be 100 or 500 or whatever. This carries on ad nauseam at Prince’s expense,’ he told Reuters. He said his company had also removed around 300 items from eBay, where whole lines of pirated goods trading on Prince’s name had appeared, including clocks, socks, mugs and key rings.”

[From Yahoo]

Prince, if there’s someone out there that wants to buy your face on a coffee mug from eBay, let them. They probably like you enough to have bought a few of your CDs too. YouTube is generally fan-based. It’s probably not super-wise to piss off the last 12 fans you have. Sorry, my seething dislike is boiling through again. If nothing else, this stuff is hard to stop. It seems best to work with the companies (not Pirate Bay, but the others) to try to put your content on there yourself legally. If it’s on the site, that means there’s a market for it and people want it. Instead of suing them, why don’t you work together? If you go to YouTube, you can find official videos from lots of artists and major networks. That way everyone is happy and you don’t look like a prissy little metallic-covered hamster. Sorry, it slipped through again.

Picture note by JayBird: Here’s Prince at the Bourne Ultimatum UK Premiere. Images thanks to PR Photos.

Music retailers are furious that Prince is giving away his new album, Planet Earth, with copies of the Mail on Sunday.

The promotion is believed to be worth about £250,000 to the musician, whose hits include Purple Rain, Raspberry Beret and Money Don’t Matter 2Night.

But the giveaway has angered retailers, who called it “an insult” to high street record stores.

It also dealt a blow to Prince’s record label, Sony BMG, which has shelved plans to release the album in the UK.

BBC News

Prince’s last album, 3121, only sold 80,000 copies in the UK, so giving away 3 million is at least shifting some units. I don’t think Prince would have sold that many through regular retailers. The Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) agrees, claiming that most of the CDs won’t be listened to. Impressively, 3 million albums is almost double Prince’s total sales for the last ten years in the United Kingdom. The ERA is contacting environmental groups about the waste the abondoned CDs will create in landfill.

Prince is also giving away copies of the album to people who purchase tickets to his upcoming concerts, although at £31.21 a ticket this is less of a bargain.

This is the first time in the UK an album has been promoted using a newspaper like this, and not been sold in stores. The Mirror is trying to get the giveaway included in sales for the week, giving Prince a number one album.

I personally think the whole thing is genius. It doesn’t matter whether anyone takes advantage of the offer, Prince still gets paid £250,000. Then there is the controversy that gets him publicity and he prevents illegal downloads.

All of this seems like a bit of a storm in a teacup, but my favourite quote out of the whole saga would have to be this one from Paul Quirk of the ERA:

Paul Quirk, co-chairman of the organisation, said the decision “beggars belief”.

“The Artist formerly known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores,” said Mr Quirk, referring to a period in the 1990s when Prince famously stopped using his name in favour of a symbol.

Yeah, we all thought Prince was crazy when he turned into a symbol. Turns out he’s pretty business savvy too.

Header image is from Blogs.guardian.co.uk.