Prince’s Bassist Details His Unusual Behavior Months Before Passing

Nearly 10 years after Prince’s passing, “BrownMark,” a friend and former bandmate, is revealing some interesting – yet strange – information about the musical icon’s “weird” behavior in the months leading to his accidental fentanyl overdose. 

Mark Brown, also known as “BrownMark,” was the bass guitarist for Prince’s band The Revolution. From 1981 to 1986, he was a key member of the group, contributing to albums like “Controversy,” “Around the World in a Day,” and “Parade.” Now, in a recent Page Six interview, Brown recalled a shift in Prince’s demeanor that felt increasingly concerning.

On April 21, 2016, Prince, the legend behind the classic records like “Purple Rain” and “When Doves Cry,” passed away after being unresponsive in an elevator at his Paisley Park estate. An autopsy revealed that the 57-year-old died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl. It was later reported by the Los Angeles Times and other outlets that the seven-time Grammy winner thought that he was buying Vicodin, unaware that the counterfeit pills were laced with fentanyl. Although Brown didn’t know about Prince’s drug use, he felt something was off, revealing that the artist was showing signs of confusion, forgetting conversations and abruptly canceling plans.

“I knew something was wrong,” Brown shared with Page Six. “Something was not right with his memory and his behavior.”

Brown previously told the New York Post in 2020 that Prince kept a “tight leash” on the band, even issuing the bass player a phone that only he could reach him on.

“It could be 4 o’clock in the morning, and my Bat Phone would ring,” he recalled. “If I didn’t answer, one of Prince’s security guards knocked on my door and told me to come to the studio. Prince would be there, looking like a rock star ready for a photo shoot, and he’d have me jam with him on an idea for hours.”

Because Prince was such a perfectionist, Brown said seeing him so “disconnected during his final months was shocking. He revealed that the two had been “out of touch for years,” as their brotherhood turned volatile, until the bassist received a call from the Paisley Park janitor, Jim Lundstrom.

“He says, ‘Mark, I have a feeling that [Prince is] going to get in touch with you because he won’t stop talking about you,’” Brown told Page Six. Lundstrom told Brown that Prince was “regretful about the past and ready to make it right.” 

Shortly after the heads-up, Brown finally received a call. 

“[Prince] says, ‘I want you to fly to Minneapolis. Putting some things together. I want to see if you want to be involved,’” Brown recalled.

Despite their complicated history, Brown was ready to show up for his brother. He immediately left his California home to head to Minneapolis, but when he arrived, Prince said he forgot that he had sent for him. Brown waited in his hotel room alone for days. 

Days later, he ran into drummer John Blackwell Jr. in the hotel lobby and tried to get answers. “I don’t have a bat number. I don’t know how to get a hold of [Prince]. I’ve been sitting here. I don’t know what’s going on,” he recalled saying.

When Blackwell mentioned to Prince that Brown was waiting at the hotel, the artist’s response was puzzling: “‘What? What’s he doing there? Oh, you brought him here?’ And he goes, ‘Oh, I forgot.’” When Brown arrived at Prince’s Paisley Park studio, he was even more confused.

The two talked about forming a new group and reviving the Revolution sound again. Brown agreed to the collaboration, uprooted his life from California, and relocated to Minneapolis. But when he walked into the studio, he said Prince was reportedly shocked. “You could see the panic in his face because you can see he just remembered what he had done: ‘Oh man, wait a minute. I moved him here,’” BrownMark said. “His memory was like really, really shot at that point.”

As this behavior became more apparent, the bassist began to suspect that Prince’s short-term memory was damaged by the drug use he relied on for his hip pain. The day before the singer was set to meet with an addiction specialist, he passed away in a home’s elevator. 

“Man, [pills] just clouds your memory. And I think that’s what was happening with him because he was heavily relying upon opioids for his pain, for his hip,” Brown told Page Six— noting that Prince would never have publicly admitted he was having problems. “He ain’t gonna let nobody see him sweat,” he said. “He [wasn’t] going to tell anybody.”