Heavy/Getty Music icon Prince
With a Hollywood career that dates back to the 80s, from starring in hit TV shows to headlining over a dozen Hallmark Channel movies, Holly Robinson Peete has rubbed elbows with some of the biggest stars in entertainment. But recalling what happened when she met two of her idols — Michael Jackson and Prince — still makes the 58-year-old actress blush.
Robinson Peete spilled the beans when she appeared on the May 9, 2023, episode of “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” sharing details of two separate occasions when she was the “super starstruck” and things went terribly wrong.
Holly Robinson Peete Gave Herself a Makeover Before Meeting Michael Jackson
Jennifer Hudson Show/YouTubeHolly Robinson Peete on “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” sharing a photo of herself with Michael Jackson in the 70s
Robinson Peete’s first time on TV was when she was four, per the NAACP, and appeared opposite her dad, producer and actor Matthew Robinson, who played the original Gordon on the children’s show “Sesame Street.”
During her appearance on “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” the actress, now 58, told Hudson that she begged to be on the show, but then kept adorably messing up the one line she was given. Rather than saying “Hi, Gordon,” the first-time actress kept saying “Hi, Daddy!”
When Hudson asked whether she got to meet any celebrities that appeared on the iconic children’s show, Robinson Peete revealed one of her funniest childhood moments.
“So, he was a big celebrity back then … in the 70s,” Robinson Peete said of her dad. “We found out that one group of celebrities that wanted to meet him was the Jackson 5.”
The audience gasped when a black and white photo appeared on a screen behind the talk show couch, with Robinson Peete and Jackson as kids, standing next to one another.
She then told the audience, “Don’t y’all laugh at me, but the night before I met Michael, I cut my pigtails off so I could have a ‘fro like him.”
Shocked, Hudson exclaimed, “You cut your pigtails off!? You do look like him!”
“I couldn’t raise my eyes to look at him,” Robinson Peete recalled. “That’s how in love I was with him. My dad’s behind us. He wanted to meet ‘Gordon.’ He wasn’t in a great mood that day I guess. Mike wasn’t. But I was frozen.”
Robinson Peete compared herself to a famous scene from “The Brady Bunch,” in which young Cindy Brady froze when the on-air light of a TV camera turned on.
“That was me, that was me,” she said.
When Hudson asked whether her dad knew she’d cut her hair, Robinson Peete replied, “They all knew. But it was Mike! I had to have a ‘fro like him! So that was the end of that. Don’t I fit in?”
“You did,” Hudson said, laughing. “You had a vision. You did that!”
Robinson Peete exclaimed, “I was the lost sister!”
Holly Robinson Peete Also Shared Embarrassing Moment With Prince
GettyPrince, Holly Robinson Peete
During their conversation about interactions with fellow stars, Hudson asked if there was anyone else in her career that left her starstruck.
“One time I was super starstruck was when I met Prince,” Robinson Peete said, and the crowd gasped again. Hudson replied, “I understand that!”
Robinson Peete then shared that, back when she starred in the hit 90s sitcom “Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper,” which IMDb says aired from 1992 to 1997, she also sang the theme song. To her surprise, she got a call from Prince after he heard it.
“He called me,” Robinson Peete exclaimed.
“He will do that,” replied Hudson, who knew and performed with Prince before his 2016 death at Paisley Park, his famous studio and home in Chanhassen, Minnesota.
“He will just call you,” Robinson Peete agreed. “But I thought it was my brother playin’. I was like ‘Stop messing around, Matt! And it was him. He goes, ‘I have a song, I would like you to record it at Paisley Park, you have a great voice.’ And the next thing you know, that song was delivered, I was at Paisley Park, and I went and did it.”
Robinson Peete continued, “It was so cute, it was called ‘Holly Don’t Care.’ We never got to release it, but he sang all over it and you could hear his voice and, just, I miss him so much.”
The actress explained that Prince brought her into his office at Paisley Park, recalling that she was “so nervous,” and that he asked if she wanted something to eat. She was hungry, she said, but she didn’t want to admit it until he insisted his chef could make her anything. So she requested spaghetti.
“And he had this white couch with these purple pillows,” she said, and the talk show audience erupted into whispers and gasps, suspecting something likely happened to Prince’s pristine, white couch.
“Y’all already know,” Robinson Peete said to them. “I’m tearing that spaghetti up, and I drop some on his couch. And I know he was watching me from some camera somewhere!”
Robinson Peete then reenacted her next move, licking an imaginary napkin and trying to dab the spot from the couch.
“Made it worse,” she exclaimed. “Saliva don’t fix it! And then when he came in and tried to sit over on it. And he came in and Prince was like, ‘I saw you drop the spaghetti.'”
Robinson Peete buried her face in her hands as the audience laughed, and then said, “But we had the best time.”