'I didn't know one beautiful woman who didn't want to be with him': Ex-girlfriend Carmen Electra and others share their most vivid memories of Prince

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The death of iconoclastic pop star Prince at the age of 57 earlier this year shocked the world.

Now those who had a chance to meet the legendary performer are sharing their most vivid memories.

Prince was found dead at his Minnesota estate on April 21. He died from what an autopsy report later revealed to be an overdose of fentanyl, a powerful opioid painkiller that is up to 50 times more potent than heroin.

His friends and acquaintances remembered him as an unusual celebrity who spoke softly and did ordinary things like make scrambled eggs and shopping for locks in hardware stores.

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Prince (seen here performing during the Super Bowl at Dolphins Stadium in Miami on February 4, 2007) was found dead at his Minnesota home from an apparent overdose of painkillers

‘He smelled like lavender,’ singer Kandace Springs told GQ.

‘Dude, I'm not even kidding you. Overtime. My sister burns lavender in my house and I'm, "Oh God, it smells like Paisley Park." That's Prince.’

Springs befriended Prince on Twitter after he first heard her cover version of a Sam Smith song online in 2014.

A member of Prince’s band, Morris Hayes, recalls one instance in which the singer, clad in a turtleneck sweater and fuzzy boots, walked in to a hardware store to the shock of locals in Minnesota.

‘People are looking like, "Oh my God, Prince is in the hardware store!",’ Hayes said.

Prince's (left) former girlfriend, Carmen Electra (right), says the singer wrote a song called 'I Hate U' after he found out she was dating another guy

‘He comes and finds me and he's got a handful of crap—like, "Can we buy this?"’

Hayes then recalled how Prince had walked into the Ace store even though the car they drove was still in the parking lot with the keys in the ignition.

‘I'm [saying to him], "What did you do with the car?"’

‘He says, "It's out there—it's just running".’

‘I said, "Prince, you can't leave the car running—somebody could just steal the car".’

‘He said, "This is Chanhassen—nobody's gonna steal the car".’

Singer Kandace Springs (left) said that Prince (right), whom the singer met through Twitter after hearing her cover of a Sam Smith song, smelled like lavender

‘So we get out to the car and sure enough it's out there, just running, smoke coming out of the tailpipe.’

‘And he's like, "I told you".’

Prince’s ex-girlfriend, the former Baywatch star Carmen Electra, remembers him as industrious.

‘He never slept—he couldn't sleep,’ she said. ‘I would wake up alone: Where'd he go? And his housekeeper said, "He's in the studio".

‘Or he would leave the sweetest little notes on the stairs that would say: "Had to work! Couldn't sleep. Come see me”.’

Van Jones (left), a former aide to President Barack Obama, said that Prince (right) could have had a career in comedy if he never became a musician, even comparing him to Eddie Murphy

Electra shared personal anecdotes about the pain she felt at seeing Prince pursued by other women.

‘I don't know one beautiful woman who didn't want to be with him. But it did hurt me. It hurt me really bad. And I was too young to really communicate with him, so I just kind of pulled away,’ she said.

At one point, Prince wrote a song about her titled ‘I Hate U’ after he learned that she was dating someone else.

‘It was hard to hear,’ she said. ‘And it was even harder to hear the parts of the song that said it could have been a completely different way.’

‘Then to say, "I hate you because I love you"—I literally cried in front of him. I think he just wanted me to hear it and know that he was really upset. Then he flew me back to Los Angeles.’

No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani said Prince inspired her to write her own music.

Gwen Stefani said Prince inspired her to write her own hit songs, something that never occurred to her before

‘He said to me [one time], "Have you ever tried to write a hit? Why wouldn't you just try to?"

‘I was like, "Okay.…" It was something that never really dawned on me. Like, how do you write a hit?

‘And for me, I'm not one of those arty album-track kind of girls that likes all the obscure songs—I live by hits. That's what I love. And I think when he said that, it just kind of resonated with me.

‘I was, "Wow, that's interesting".’

Van Jones, a former aide to President Barack Obama, remembered Prince as someone who had a remarkable sense of humor.

‘This dude was ridiculously hilarious,’ Jones said. ‘He would have been one of the most famous people in the world if he had never touched an instrument, just as a comedian.

‘We would sit up and just laugh and laugh. You know, his particular kind of black comedic sensibility that you see with Kevin Hart or Eddie Murphy or Dave Chappelle.

‘Prince was as funny as those guys, or funnier, easily. Because that sense of timing is so important for music or for sex or for comedy, and his comedic timing was just ridiculous.’