Sinead O’Connor Reveals ‘Hellish’ Night Spent With Prince

Irish singer Sinead O’Connor, best known for the 1990 hit “Nothing Compares 2U,” has a memoir called Rememberings hitting shelves on June 1, and in it she recounts her life and the twists and turns that fame brought her. PEOPLE released an exclusive clip from the upcoming book recounting O’Connor’s “hellish” night she spent with the writer of “Nothing Compares 2U:” Prince. She and the “Purple Rain” singer had not met each other before she recorded her version of the song, but eventually she got a cryptic invitation to “hang out.”

“‘You want a drink?’ He smiles,” O’Connor writes. “He turns to the cupboard for a glass. Then, quick as a flash, he slams the glass down and says, ‘Get it yourself.’ I’ve seen this before. I grew up with it. I start mentally checking for exits.” O’Connor explains that Prince has an issue with “the language you’re using in your print interviews . . . I don’t like you swearing.” She tells him “I don’t work for you. If you don’t like it, you can f— yourself.” According to O’Connor, her response angers Prince.

“He leaves the kitchen,” she writes. “[Later] he comes back with two pillows and says,’Why don’t we have a pillow fight?’ All smiles and nice. I think, It wouldn’t be everyday that you’d get to have a pillow fight with Prince . . . let’s try to make it a fun evening after the sh–ty start. Only on the first thump, I realize he’s got something stuffed in the pillow, designed to hurt. He ain’t playing at all. I make a run for it. I call my friend Ciara to pick me up.”

O’Connor later found out that there were some ongoing legal battle between her manager Steve Fargnoli and Prince, but the damage was done. “I’ve been the victim of an attack meant to terrorize Steve. I don’t care. I never wanted to see that devil again.” Prince died in 2016, at the age of 57, of an accidental overdose on fentanyl. “It certainly didn’t change my opinion of him as an artist, which was the only opinion I could have had. I never knew him otherwise,” O’Connor told PEOPLE of their encounter. “Obviously, I came away not liking him very much and not particularly wanting to go around to see him again. But having said that, though, I won’t lie. I didn’t like the man.”