Katt Williams says meeting Prince as a kid pushed him to see beyond the limits he’d set for himself.
On the Wednesday (December 3) episode of the IMO Podcast with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson, the comedian shared that he dated a younger cousin of the “1999” star when he was 12. Williams said Prince would’ve been around 18 at the time, even though they’re 13 years apart.
“I met Prince when I was 12. And he changed the trajectory of belief for me,” Williams said around the 1:05:00 mark. “I knew I didn’t have to make any changes. This was a guy who was shorter than me. He was already rich and famous. And he had a purpose in life.”
He added that Prince’s cousin was his first girlfriend and recalled meeting the legendary musician when he came to Dayton to perform. “You ever meet somebody and go, ‘Whoo, this person’s way smarter than me,’” Williams said. “So it was really my first time being in the vicinity of real brilliance.”
Williams recalled having a “super deep conversation” with Prince, and by the end of it, they were basically “friends.” But when Prince walked him out and spotted his bike — a “tricked-out mongoose,” as Williams described it — things shifted.
“That’s when he lets me know that he’s 18, a grown man. I’m 12. But because of our sizes, we just assumed that each other was the same,” he said.
Williams explained that meeting Prince changed how he viewed himself: “He gave me the confidence to know because up until that point in my life, I thought there were some things I was gonna need to do in order to be good enough. Like, I gotta get taller… I can’t find evidence that anyone in the world missed a growth spurt.”
Prince, he said, made him realize height had nothing to do with purpose or success.
“He already had just signed his music deal. He had just produced his album by himself. He played 26 instruments on it. He did all of the jobs. And it had worked,” Williams continued. “And so I knew that I didn’t have to make any changes. I just had to be in the right position and be right myself when it transpires.”
Williams has spoken lovingly about Prince before — earlier this year on This Past Weekend with Theo Von, he called the late icon a “magnificent, one of a kind individual.”
