Prince and Carlos Boozer: The Real Story
Excerpted from the book EVERY SHOT COUNTS: A Memoir of Resilience by Carlos Boozer. Copyright © 2023 by Carlos Boozer. Reprinted by permission of Hanover Square Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.
I nearly sued Prince.
Yes, that Prince. The seven-time Grammy winner. Musical icon. Nearly fifty top-50 songs. Nineteen top-10 songs. Five No. 1 hits. Over one hundred million albums sold the world over. Recognized the world over.
I met Prince during my first season with the Utah Jazz, though my path to the musical legend began two years before that, when Cleveland played the L.A. Clippers.
“Hey!” a blond, clean-cut man yelled from the front row during warmups. “I know the Brotherhood.” Like he’d uttered a secret password, I tossed away the ball I had in my hands and walked over to him. His name was Gunnar Peterson, and he was one of the most famous personal trainers in the world, though I didn’t know that from our first encounter.
“Class of ’85,” he said. “If you’re ever out in L.A., I’d love to train you.”
Gunnar hadn’t played sports at Duke, but he’d befriended a lot of the athletes who valued physical fitness as much as he did. We exchanged numbers, and when I next hit up L.A., I called him, curious to see why so many celebrities and professional athletes worked with him. Gunnar’s personal gym was built inside a massive guesthouse next to his even more massive home. It was a secluded Bel Air property one couldn’t see from the road. The first time I drove up and parked outside the gym, another car pulled in alongside me. I turned to look, and it was Jennifer Lopez. I looked away quickly, not wanting to be accused of staring.
“You train J.Lo?” I asked Gunnar, who met me at the entrance after Jennifer walked inside.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “I trained Ben before he even met J.Lo. Pre-Bennifer. You’ll probably recognize a few people I train.”
Photo Illustration by Dan Larkin; Michael Kovac/Clear Channel/Getty (Prince); Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty Images (Boozer)
In the summer of 2004, fresh off our mixed Olympics experience, my then wife CeCe and I made a pit stop in L.A. on our way to Utah. The only neighborhood I knew well enough was Bel Air, thanks to my visits with Gunnar, so we rented a place in the extremely affluent area. The warm weather was enticing and with each passing day CeCe and I talked dreamily about buying a house there. We hadn’t even purchased a house in Salt Lake City yet, but my next NBA check was going to be a big one. CeCe and I thought it might be nice to have a house here for our eventual family. She enlisted an agent and suddenly, we were touring Bel Air mansions. We ended up at a gated property at the cusp of nearby West Hollywood, perched on the same Santa Monica Mountains as the famous Hollywood sign, overlooking the city itself.
“This gorgeous place was owned by the president of Interscope Records,” our realtor, Roxanne, told us, a morsel that meant nothing to us at the time.
It was an extravagant 18,000-foot Mediterranean-style palatial estate house sitting on a little over two acres. Built in 1953, the six-story concrete structure had 10 bedrooms, 13 baths, plus all the bells and whistles you could imagine. The multiple “living areas” were so vast and spacious, it would take a couple of sets of living room furniture to fill them.
“This room could hold hundreds of people,” I said, envisioning the get-togethers we’d have with the new friends we’d make. Sunlight poured in from the floor-to-ceiling windows. The parquet floor was flawless and buffed to a shine; a 15-foot-wide glass light fixture hung dramatically from the ceiling.
“Three hundred—give or take,” Roxanne smiled. “This was originally the ballroom.”
In multiple rooms, French doors opened onto large terraces with ocean and city views. The terraces, which took up thousands of square feet, were decorated with stone fountains of Grecian statues. This place was designed to entertain hundreds of guests at every turn. It had that distinctive “Old Hollywood” vibe. I pictured some famous 1950s actress stepping out onto one of the terraces in a flowing silk gown, sipping a martini while gazing toward the sea. I could see my parents sitting here, sipping their morning coffee on a visit.
The complex also boasted a rooftop tennis court with an elevated clubhouse to oversee the matches. This could be easily converted to a basketball court, I thought. Then, my younger brother, Charles, and possibly a son or daughter, could shoot with me.
The pool moved through a stone grotto, which hid a hot tub and wine room. I envisioned my kids skimming down the built-in slide jutted out of the rocks and splashing into the water. A private parking area, lined with the same rose cobblestone that paved every road on the property, could hold a dozen luxury cars. We’d need these spots when my family came to visit.
As we moved from room to room, I justified a purchase more and more. I was smitten. CeCe favored a newer house, for about the same price, on the other side of town. Still, this place just felt right to me. Was it a flex buy? One-hundred percent. I was in the grocery checkout aisle grabbing copies of all the tabloid magazines with the juicy covers. “Impulse buy” pretty much covers it.
CeCe decorated the house in gentle earth tones. She ordered lush cream carpeting from Italy to match the off-white furniture. Flowy, beige draperies silhouetted the windows. By the time CeCe was done with the house, it was sleek and chic.
My biggest contribution to the project was transforming the rooftop tennis court into a basketball court. Now that we had the money, I always wanted somewhere to put up shots at any hour, somewhere only a few steps away and warm. I always wanted to be able to practice somewhere warm. Buying this particular property was a flex move, but I saw my family enjoying it with me.
Boozer played for Cleveland, Utah, Chicago and the Lakers in his 13-year career.
John W. McDonough/Sports Illustrated
CeCe and I traveled on to Salt Lake City that fall, leaving our newly furnished home behind. I knew there would be times when we’d be in L.A. to enjoy it, but as the season got underway my focus fixed to Salt Lake.
That September, I got a call from our real estate agent, Roxanne. It turns out the house had some serious history of its own. It was a well-known destination for entertaining in elite circles, designed by an eccentric architect who invited celebrities and starlets to mingle about and enjoy it. Elizabeth Taylor had been among the rumored visitors of that time, and in later years, the house was said to still attract the Hollywood set. She said a few parties had independently inquired about renting it, but I didn’t want someone moving into our newly decorated house for a couple of months, when CeCe and I hadn’t lived in it yet. A few weeks later, Roxanne called back a second time, this time with a substantial offer. The dozen-plus offers had fallen away, but one.
“They want to rent it for the eight months,” Roxanne said, “but wait to hear what they’re offering a month. Seventy thousand dollars. A month.”
That was a chunk of change enough to give this twenty-three-year-old pause. This would-be mystery renter, who kept their identity hidden when they made the offer, was persistent. Curiosity consumed us enough to where CeCe and I finally relented. It was a decent-enough sum to put toward our mortgage, and we’d rent another place in L.A., if need be. Plans were set for me to fly out to meet my new tenant on the property to sign the contracts.
A standard black limousine pulled in through the gates. I was curious to see who wanted my house badly enough to drop over half a million dollars for it. The person who climbed out of the car was a five-foot-two waif of a man who nearly knocked me over with his presence, alone. I looked at my real estate agent, who was as stunned as I was.
“Wow,” my mouth leaked, before I regained my wits. “Ah, nice to meet you,” I said, stepping forward and extending my hand to Prince, who shook it lightly. He wore oversized, Audrey Hepburn–style sunglasses, but there was no doubt it was him. He had that pencil-thin mustache and goatee, and precisely coifed hair.
Prince introduced his entourage, while I stared at his outfit. His svelte form wore tight-fit black leather pants and platform boots, my guess to give him a couple of extra inches. He finished the outfit with a billowy purple blouse. It was very fashion forward, very cutting edge. I was immediately taken with how comfortable he was in his own skin. This man was a fashion plate; his frilly blouses and long purple coats are iconic. My mother had gone to one of his concerts during the ’80s, and when Prince gyrated away from the crowd, he revealed his other set of cheeks hanging out of his pants. Now, that’s confidence.
“I think I was conceived to ‘Purple Rain,’” I said, thinking I was clever. He nodded, as if he’d heard that one before.
“I watched you come out of Duke,” he shared, returning the compliment much better than I could. “Aggressive.”
We proceeded inside, Prince leading the way with his hands clasped behind his back. I began the tour, trying to remember anything of value I could scrape up from memory. Prince moved silently from room to room, as if he’d been there before. He had. Many times. When that president of Interscope Records owned the joint.
“There’s something about this place, Carlos,” he said in a soft-spoken voice that didn’t match his wild onstage persona in the slightest. “It’s the place I need to be to write my next album. This place will fuel my inspiration.”
Up on the rooftop court, Prince picked up a stray ball and sunk a solid jump shot. Prince was a well-known NBA fan.
“How do you think the Lakers will do this year?” he asked.
I grabbed a ball and shot, myself, launching into my predictions for the Kobe Bryant–Shaquille O’Neal super squad.
“How about Garnett?” he asked, lobbing in another shot. Prince had skills. No doubt about it. And everyone knew Prince was from Minnesota, thus his love for Kevin “Big Ticket” Garnett and the Timberwolves.
“He’s one of the toughest guys I’ve defended,” I said. “I haven’t been able to go off on scoring with him yet. Shuts me down every time.”
That brought a grin to Prince’s face. I’d passed a test, apparently. My real estate agent presented the contracts, which we signed that night. Prince’s father was coming into town in a few weeks, and he seemed anxious to get his home base set up before that. I stayed in L.A. a few more days, and we met up for dinner one night to talk more basketball. He was an expert on the sport.
I went back to Utah, and Prince got to work on his album. I didn’t return to the house for a couple of months, when business brought me back to town. I dialed the number Prince had left me on my way from the airport. It went straight to voicemail, so I left a message.
“Yo, P,” I said. “I’m heading over to you now from LAX and I wanted to see if you needed anything.” He hadn’t called me back before I pulled up to our gates nearly two hours later. I went to punch my passcode into the keypad when I saw a large purple symbol adorning the gate where golden lions used to be. I had the wrong house. I backed out and retraced my steps, keeping a closer eye on my surroundings. Again, I ended up at the gate with the purple symbol. I couldn’t even tell what they were. I cautiously dialed in my code, and the gate swung open.
Prince, famously, loved basketball and followed the NBA closely.
John W. McDonough/Sports Illustrated
It was hard not to miss the purple carpeting cascading down the off-white stone steps leading up to the house’s main entrance. Purple flowers gushed out of the planters. The symbol from the gate was embroidered on it in black. And were those purple stripes painted on that exterior wall?
Inside, the neutral wall-to-wall carpeting had been replaced with black. Every piece of furniture CeCe selected was replaced with puffy couches and chairs that looked like violet and amethyst clouds. Where had he stored everything?
A spare bedroom had been transformed into a hair salon with chairs and overhead heaters. Mirrors covered every wall. I turned the handle of one of the sinks used for washing hair, and water came out.
“How did he get running water into this room?” I asked out loud. He must have hired a plumber to install piping through these old walls.
My weight room, one of the few areas I’d had any input on, was now a dimly lit dance club with a glittering disco ball and a DJ booth. A purple heart-shaped bed occupied our master bedroom with matching monogrammed carpeting.
However, the most egregious alteration was the doorway Prince created by pulling up the baseboards and cutting a hole between two previously unconnected rooms.
“What happened to our house?” I asked out loud, but even the Hollywood ghosts that roamed its halls had been stunned into silence. I immediately left a message for Prince, trying to hide my displeasure. Then, I left another. Days went by, and my messages to Prince gained urgency. A month passed with no word from him. And then another. My lawyers urged me to file a lawsuit to protect my very big asset, but I stalled.
“Are we really going to have to sue Prince?” I asked CeCe in bed one night. “It seems, well, wrong. I really don’t want to do it. My mom would never forgive me.”
“Maybe it’s just to get his attention, to get him to answer your calls,” she reasoned. “We can always settle things once he answers you.”
The next day, I fumbled through a final voicemail message for Prince.
“P, I’ve been trying to reach you,” I said. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for two months. I don’t know where you are, and I hope everything is O.K. with you and your family. It’s just I’m about to sue you because you changed my whole house around, and that’s a breach of contract.”
Not knowing how to sign off, I left it at that. Three days later, a foreign phone number with extra digits flashed over my phone’s screen. It was Prince. He’d been out of town for months, overseas in Asia. He’d finished the album, entitled 3121 and left to go on world tour.
“I’m so sorry, Booz,” he said in his calming, voodoo voice. “When the lease is up, it will be like I was never there. Trust me.”
There was something in his voice that told me it was going to be all right. I’ve only met a few people in my lifetime that had that kind of pull over the phone the way he did. He also sent me an additional $500,000 to further ease my mind, doubling what he’d agreed to pay us. I contacted the realtor, and lawyers and told them to put any legal action on hold. All told, Prince paid $95,000 a month for an entire year, and that didn’t include the half a million bonus he tossed our way faster than a John Stockton pass.
In his final months at the house, Prince called me to ask for one additional alteration. He asked to raise the dense shrubbery surrounding the compound to obstruct the view of the paparazzi helicopters swirling over it.
“I don’t know how they figured out I was here, Booz,” he lamented.
Once Prince’s lease was up, CeCe and I flew to L.A. to survey the damage, like parents coming home from a weekend to find their kid has thrown an absolute rager. Pulling up, the gate symbols and the purple exterior carpeting were gone. Inside, harsh purple and black had faded back to the neutral palette CeCe had selected. The furniture and other decor were where we had left it. The discotheque was gone, as was the hair salon. My weights were where they were supposed to be. Everything was back in its place, down to the silverware. Prince kept his word. He and I kept in touch, too, catching lunch or dinner when we were in town at the same time.
When 3121 released, CeCe and I couldn’t believe what graced the CD’s cover, back and inside jacket. It was stills of our house, albeit with Prince’s modifications. That house was truly his muse.
