She curved WHO?! Nia Long reveals the time she played Prince — and didn’t know it

‘I’m from Brooklyn, don’t be grabbing me, touching on me!’ Long says of her initial encounter with The Purple One.

Nia Long has been turning heads since the masses were introduced to her as Brandy in “Boyz N The Hood.” She has had her fair share of men attempt to flatter her, but there’s one gentleman in particular she couldn’t believe wanted her attention. His royal badness, if you will.

Chatting with Jennifer Hudson on “The Jennifer Hudson Show” Monday (Oct. 27), Long recalled a time where she nearly fell under the spell of Prince–but didn’t realize it was him.

“Okay, so I was at Roxbury back in the day and I had on my Kenneth Cole pumps,” Long recalled. “I had on–I remember! And we were walking out of the club and this guy tries to grab my hand and I’m like, ‘I’m from Brooklyn, don’t be grabbing me, touching on me!’ So we get outside and my girlfriend was like, ‘Girl, you know that was Prince!’

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Upon realizing this, Long and her friend ran back into the club to spot The Purple One, but he was long gone.

Now, one can’t precisely pinpoint when the club moment occurred, but a solid guess would place it sometime in the early-to-mid ‘90s. Thankfully, that wasn’t the only time Long and Prince interacted as they would have another chance encounter sometime later.

“There’s a happy ending,” Long revealed to Hudson. “Cut to gosh, like 20 years later, and my girlfriend’s giving me a birthday party and she invites Prince to the party. And I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, Prince is at my birthday party!’ So I sit next to Prince and I’m having this whole flashback about being in the club … and he wanted to talk about my hair all night.”

Hudson, riveted by the admission, had to ask Long to repeat herself.

“He just wanted to know my products and who did my hair! I’ll take what I can get, it’s Prince. I was like, ‘Whatever,” we can buy hair, makeup, skincare, whatever you want. It’s Prince!” 

If you were to guess who possibly inspired later performances of the Prince classic  “She Lives In My Hair,” look no further than Nia Long. Even nine years after his untimely passing, Prince’s tall tales continue to live on, only adding to the mystery of one of the greatest musicians who ever lived.