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Wednesday, February 17, 2016 6:05am ET by  
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Prince has paid a touching tribute to his late girlfriend Vanity

Prince commenced his Piano and a Microphone solo tour in Australia on February 16.

His first show took place at Melbourne's State Theatre after he had just been told about the death of Denise Matthews, aka Vanity, his ex-girlfriend from the early ‘80s and protoge when she fronted the band Vanity 6. He told the audience:

“Someone dear to us has passed away, I’m gonna dedicate this song to her,” before playing Little Red Corvette with a touch of Dirty Mind, songs from their time together.

Prince reworked The Ladder to replace the name ‘Electra’ with ‘Vanity’ — so the lyrics ran “This Prince, he had a subject named Vanity who loved him with a passion, uncontested.”

After an encore Prince returned to the stage noting “I am new to this playing alone. I thank you all for being so patient. I’m trying to stay focused, it’s a little heavy for me tonight. Just keep jamming ... She knows about this one.” That introduced a truly incredible version of The Beautiful Ones, another song from the Vanity era (she was the original choice for lead in the Purple Rain movie), the song ending with Prince changing “my knees” for “Denise ... Denise”.

He also shared an anecdote with the crowd:

“Can I tell you a story about Vanity? Or should I tell you a story about Denise? Her and I used to love each other deeply. She loved me for the artist I was, I loved her for the artist she was trying to be. She and I would fight. She was very headstrong cos she knew she was the finest woman in the world. She never missed an opportunity to tell you that.”

Prince then told the audience about the time he threatened to throow her into a swimming pool:

"She said 'You can’t throw me in the pool, you’re too little'. So, he asked his six foot bodyguard, Chick, to throw her in for him. He continued:

“I probably shouldn’t be telling this story but she’d want us to celebrate her life and not mourn her.”

Denise Matthews aka Vanity died on Monday (February 15) at the age of 57 in a Fremont, CA hospital. She had battled kidney failure and a recent abdominal illness.

She met Prince at the American Music Awards in 1982 where he asked the 21-year-old to be the lead singer in girl group, Vanity 6. Their biggest hit was Nasty Girl. The two became lovers.

However, as her music career subsided in the late '80's she developed a crack-cocaine problem whilst with her then boyfriend, Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx. She almost overdosed in 1994 suffering permanent kidney damage. After this near-death experience, Vanity became a Christian, abandoned her stage name and became an evangelist.

Four months ago Matthews set up a GoFundMe page to help re-publish her memoirs, Blame It On Vanity, so that she could finance the 23 surgeries she had over the years. She explained she'd been diagnosed with sclerosing encapsulating peritonitis -- an inflammation of the small intestines. At the time of writing the GoFundMe page shows that she raised £4,651 ($6,659) of the £35,000 ($50,000) goal.

On the page, she wrote:

"My Nephrologist told me Friday afternoon that i did not have Pacreatitis" and that is good news however the bad news is they say i have "Sclerosis Encapsulating Peritonitis" I thought the first diagnosis was weird because i was never a drinker nor have i ever been drunk in my whole life, that was not my drug of choice "back in the day.

I was on a Peritoneal type of dialysis for six years and we know that whatever we do unto our body feeding it chemically, dialysis medicines, unless it is perfectly organic can lead to much suffering in its end. I went into the emergency twice this week, boy it is not fun suffering in this body of weak flesh... but Jesus is straightening out all my crooked places in my heart as i go thru this time of pain....i won't complain!"


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Watch Vanity 6's 'Nasty Girl' video, Denise Matthews be interviewed, and a fan montage to the Purple Couple below:

 

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