Prince's death: Sinbad, Sheila E attend memorial service
Here's the latest on the investigation into the singer's death, his estate and tributes:
8:19 p.m. ET: Comedian Sinbad, musician Sheila E, and Gilbert Davison, Prince’s former manager, were among the guests seen attending a private memorial service for Prince on Sunday evening at the Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall in Minnetonka, Minn., reports the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. Paul Allen, the radio voice of the Minnesota Vikings, was also seen among the attendees of the ceremony which was closed to reporters, according to the report. Larry Graham, bass player for Sly and the Family Stone and a longtime friend of Prince, spoke about the musician at the service according to multiple reports.
12:30 p.m. ET: A memorial is expected to take place at 5 p.m. CT/6 p.m. ET at the Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall on Lake Street Extension in suburban Minneapolis. Prince was a member of a local Jehovah's Witness congregation. The superstar's family will not be present at the ceremony. On Friday, his sister, Tyka Nelson, wrote in a Facebook post that neither she nor Prince's remains would be there. She indicated that an official family memorial/tribute might come at the end of summer.
11 a.m. ET: The Star Tribune in Minneapolis published a story looking at two of Prince's confidants: Kirk Johnson and Meron Bekure, who have remained quiet and loyal to their former friend and boss. Johnson was the star's go-to guy for everything and his friendship with Prince went back decades, according to the Star Tribune. He appeared briefly in 1984's Purple Rain movie as a dancer and produced Paisley Park Records projects for other artists, the StarTribune reports. “Right now, it’s just too painful to even speak,” Johnson said via text Friday to the Star Tribune. Bekure, an Ethiopian-born model, was hired to be Prince's personal assistant a few years ago, says the Star Tribune, which received a statement from her attorney saying, “Just like the rest of the world she was shocked, and requests privacy during this hard time.” The Star Tribune reports that in an online post after his death, she wrote, it had been odd for her not to wake up to “a bunch of emails with hundreds of things to do for the day.”
10 a.m. ET: One of Prince's guitars, described as a "Yellow Cloud Electric Guitar," is going on auction. It will be offered exclusively in Heritage Auctions’ Entertainment & Music Memorabilia Auction June 24-25, 2016 in Beverly Hills. The guitar will be listed with an opening bid of $30,000. "It's interesting to realize that Prince personally designed and commissioned this piece of art and it carries hallmarks of his famous 'Love Symbol,' which he would adopt as his name during a famous contract dispute with Warner Bros. in the early 1990s," Garry Shrum, director of Music Memorabilia at Heritage Auctions, said in a statement. "One glimpse and you have no doubt that this is Prince's guitar."