The scene where Jack Nicholson’s Joker playfully defaces an art museum to the sound of Prince squalling “The funkiest man you've ever seen” remains etched on synapses decades later.

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Snubbed Michael Jackson

Not many people said no to the King of Pop, but Prince was a more-than-worthy heir who walked away from an offer to duet with Michael Jackson on the smash single Bad – a little-known encounter Quincy Jones, the super-producer behind MJ’s first three and best-loved albums, later recounted.

“Prince was always competing with Michael,” Jones said in 2016. “It was a beautiful meeting, a funny meeting, and [Prince] said ‘you don’t need me on this, it’s going to be a No 1 anyway’ – which it was.”

Hosted legendary guerilla gigs … wherever and whenever he wanted

While he could pack stadiums – and demand appropriate compensation – at the drop of a hat, those metaphorical hats could never be dropped frequently enough to accommodate Prince’s spotlight-hungry urges. As well as the legendary jams at his Paisley Park home, on tour it wasn’t uncommon for Prince to bookend arena shows with unannounced, tiny, invite-only venues, while 2014’s commercially-bonkers Hit and Run tour saw His Royal Badness hit random small venues for last-minute pop-up shows, playing to thousands of fans for a nominal entrance fee.

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… supporting causes he believed in

Less than a year later Prince repeated the trick with a (not-so) “secret gig” for 400 lucky invitees at a Dubai nightclub – a blistering, two-hour sonic journey, cresting with 1999 and breaking with Purple Rain.

And Prince wasn’t paid a cent – it was a charity show, one of countless low-key altruistic turns the star made which were never shouted about in his lifetime.

As well as bailing out a public library, paying fellow musicians’ medical bills and supporting the #YesWeCode initiative to teach low-income kids to write computer code, Prince was also a staunch animal rights activist and long-term vegetarian.

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Changed his name to that silly symbol

The most infamous and misunderstood stunt Prince ever pulled was changing his name to an unpronounceable “love symbol”, in 1993, much to the irritation and bemusement of radio DJs forced to introduce his music as “the artist formerly known as Prince” – or TAFKAP for short.

But this was just the final straw in Prince’s earnest, ever-long industry battle for control of his prolific artistic outpourings (authoring some 39 albums in 37 years). Finally free, he later began self-releasing music, pioneering direct online sales and even distributing two complete albums free with British newspapers – cutting-edge promotional tactics, the influence of which was only truly understood as we entered the digital age.

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