Prince was an enigma wrapped in purple lace. Everyone knows the hits, the "Purple Rain" silhouette, and the way he could shred a guitar better than almost anyone who ever lived. But when it comes to his personal life, things get a bit more complicated and, honestly, a lot more private than your average superstar. If you are sitting there wondering how many times was Prince married, the short answer is twice. Just two times. But those numbers don't even begin to scratch the surface of his complicated relationship with romance, faith, and the women who inspired his greatest hits.
He wasn't just a serial dater or a typical rock star. Prince looked for muses. He looked for creative partners. Sometimes that ended in a walk down the aisle, and sometimes it ended in a cryptic song lyric that fans would spend decades deconstructing.
The First Marriage: Mayte Garcia and the Heartbreak of the Nineties
Prince met Mayte Garcia when she was just a teenager. It sounds like something out of a movie, or maybe a very specific type of rock and roll legend. She was a professional belly dancer, and her mother sent a tape of her dancing to Prince’s team. He was hooked instantly. Not just by the dancing, but by the aura.
They married on Valentine’s Day in 1996. It was a massive event in the world of celebrity news, even if Prince tried to keep the actual ceremony tucked away in Minneapolis. Mayte was the inspiration for "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," which tells you pretty much everything you need to know about how he viewed her at the time. She wasn't just his wife; she was his "Gold Experience."
But the marriage was defined by a tragedy that most people can't even imagine.
In October 1996, their son, Amiir, was born with Pfeiffer syndrome type 2. It’s a rare genetic disorder. He lived for only six days. Most couples struggle to survive the loss of a child, but for Prince and Mayte, the grief was compounded by the relentless eyes of the public and Prince’s own evolving spiritual beliefs. He reportedly didn't want to grieve publicly. He wanted to keep moving.
They tried to make it work. They really did. But by 1998, on their second anniversary, Prince announced that their marriage would be annulled. It was a weird, legalistic way to end things, but that was Prince. He didn't do things by the book. They officially divorced in 2000.
Mayte later wrote in her memoir, The Most Beautiful: My Life with Prince, that the loss of their son was the beginning of the end. You can't really blame them. That kind of pain changes the DNA of a relationship.
The Second Marriage: Manuela Testolini and the Quiet Years
Not long after the ink was dry on his first divorce, Prince married again. This time it was to Manuela Testolini in 2001.
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If Mayte was the flashy, artistic muse of the nineties, Manuela was the grounded, philanthropic partner of the early 2000s. She worked for his charitable foundation. They met while she was doing the actual work of running his non-profit interests. It was a different vibe entirely.
They moved to Toronto. Prince, the guy synonymous with the Minneapolis sound, was suddenly a regular fixture in Canada. He seemed settled. He was becoming more involved with the Jehovah’s Witnesses during this time, a shift that famously changed his lifestyle, his lyrics, and his outlook on the world. Manuela was there for that transition.
But even a quiet life in Toronto wasn't enough to keep the marriage together. Manuela filed for divorce in 2006. It was reportedly an amicable split, or at least as amicable as things get when you're dealing with a global icon who owns a massive estate like Paisley Park. She went on to do incredible things, including building schools in Prince’s honor after he passed away.
So, when people ask how many times was Prince married, the official count stops at two. But the story of his heart? That's way more crowded.
The Almost-Marriages and the Muses
You can't talk about Prince’s marriages without talking about the women he almost married or the ones who defined his eras.
Take Sheila E., for example. She’s a legend in her own right. She revealed in her autobiography that Prince proposed to her on stage while they were playing "Purple Rain" in the late eighties. They were engaged for a while, but they never actually made it to the altar. Their professional bond was perhaps too strong to be contained by a marriage certificate. They stayed friends and collaborators until the very end.
Then there’s Susannah Melvoin. She was the sister of Wendy Melvoin (of Wendy & Lisa). Prince and Susannah were engaged during the peak Parade and Sign o' the Times era. Songs like "Nothing Compares 2 U" were influenced by their tumultuous, passionate relationship.
And we can't forget:
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- Vanity: Denise Matthews, better known as Vanity, was his protege and a deep love interest in the early eighties.
- Apollonia Kotero: His co-star in Purple Rain. Though their romance was largely played up for the cameras, there was a genuine connection there.
- Bria Valente: His last major public relationship and another musical protege.
Prince lived his life through his music. If he loved you, you ended up in a bridge or a chorus. If he broke up with you, you ended up in a ballad that would make the whole world cry.
Why the Number Matters
Why do we care how many times was Prince married? It’s not just celebrity gossip. For Prince fans, understanding his marriages helps decode the music.
The Mayte years gave us the lush, romantic production of the mid-nineties. The Manuela years gave us a more stripped-back, spiritually focused Prince. Every time he changed his marital status, his sound seemed to shift along with it. He was a man who absorbed the energy of the people around him and channeled it into his art.
He was also a man of deep contradictions. He was a sex symbol who became a devout Jehovah’s Witness. He was a lonely genius who lived in a massive complex but spent his nights calling friends just to talk about music. His marriages were attempts to find a baseline in a life that was anything but normal.
The Legal Aftermath of a Private Life
When Prince passed away in April 2016, the fact that he was unmarried and had no surviving children created a massive legal vacuum. He didn't have a will.
Because he wasn't married at the time of his death, his massive estate—valued at hundreds of millions of dollars—was split between his siblings. If he had stayed married to Manuela or Mayte, or if he had remarried later in life, the history of the Paisley Park vaults might look very different today.
His single status at the end of his life added to the loneliness that many fans felt after he was gone. He was the King of Minneapolis, but he died alone in an elevator in his sanctuary. It’s a heavy thought.
What You Can Learn from Prince's Relationships
Prince’s life teaches us that even the most talented people on earth struggle with the basics of human connection. You can have 100 hit singles and still find it hard to navigate a long-term partnership.
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If you're looking for actionable insights from the life of the Purple One, here is what sticks out:
- Separate work and romance: Prince often mixed his professional life with his romantic life. While it created great art, it also made breakups incredibly messy because it meant losing a bandmate and a partner at the same time.
- Grief needs space: The end of his first marriage shows that tragedy can break even the strongest bonds if not handled with mutual grace and therapy.
- Privacy is a choice: Even in the age of paparazzi, Prince managed to keep his second marriage relatively low-key. You don't have to share everything with the world.
Prince was married twice, loved many times, and left behind a legacy that is impossible to quantify. He was a husband, a father for a brief and tragic moment, and a visionary who never stopped searching for "The One," even if he never quite found a way to make it last forever.
To truly understand Prince, stop looking at the marriage licenses and start listening to the B-sides. That’s where he told the truth about his heart.
Deep Dive: Prince's Relationship Timeline
To keep things clear, here is a quick breakdown of the major milestones in his romantic history:
- 1980s: High-profile engagements to Sheila E. and Susannah Melvoin. Neither resulted in marriage.
- 1996: Marriage to Mayte Garcia. This was his most "public" relationship.
- 1996 (Late): The tragic death of his son, Amiir.
- 2000: Divorce from Mayte Garcia is finalized.
- 2001: Marriage to Manuela Testolini. He becomes a Jehovah’s Witness during this era.
- 2006: Divorce from Manuela Testolini.
- 2006-2016: Prince remains unmarried until his death, though he has several close companions and proteges.
If you want to explore the music influenced by these periods, start with The Gold Experience for the Mayte era and Musicology for the transition into his later, more spiritual years. Both albums offer a raw look at a man trying to balance fame with the desire for a normal domestic life.
The reality is that Prince was married to his music first. Everything else, as beautiful or as tragic as it was, came second to the song.
Next Steps for Fans:
- Read Mayte Garcia's book The Most Beautiful for an insider's look at their marriage.
- Listen to the album Emancipation, which Prince released to celebrate his freedom from his record label and his marriage to Mayte.
- Visit Paisley Park in Chanhassen, Minnesota, to see the environment where he lived and worked during both of his marriages.
Ultimately, the question of how many times was Prince married is just a small piece of the puzzle that was Prince Rogers Nelson. He was a man of "Seven," a man of "Purple Rain," and a man who, despite his fame, kept the deepest parts of himself for the ones he truly loved.