Though the death of music icon Prince shocked the world, his sister, Tyka Nelson, claims she knew his death was coming. “It wasn’t hard at all,” Nelson told ET of coming to grips with her brother’s tragic passing. “It was a two-word phone call: ‘He’s gone.’ And I knew who he meant. I hung up the phone. An employee of Prince called. I have been preparing for two years, so I knew that it was coming.”
According to Nelson, her famous sibling suggested to her that his life was winding down. “He said it a couple of years ago: ‘I’ve done everything that I’ve come to do,'” she recalled, speaking to the entertainment site, while prepping Paisley Park before it opens its doors to the public as a museum. “I was crushed for about two years.”
Nelson also had some words of encouragement for the millions of fans who are still mourning the Grammy winner’s loss. “I’ve had two years to deal with it, but there’s a lot of people that have only had from April to now, so I guess I would say give it another year and a half and maybe you’ll be where I’m at,” she added. “I’m sorry that you’re hurting.”
Meanwhile, Nelson is managing her grief by keeping her brother’s legacy alive. “He’s written a massive amount of music and in one of our conversations, he said, ‘How I want to be remembered is as one of the most prolific writers in the world,'” Nelson recalled. “So I’m going to do everything that I can to make that dream come true.”
As for the reported 2K unreleased songs locked away in a vault, Nelson intends for fans to enjoy them. “We’re going to pull it up and we’re going to remix it and we’re going to get it out,” Nelson said, referencing the BBC documentary Hunting for Prince’s Vault. In the meantime, the Paisley Park museum officially opens on Thursday, Oct. 13 — where tourists will get an inside look at Prince’s private world, including artifacts from the 1984 film Purple Rain, his recording studio and private diner.
