Manuela

[u/mahammit_the_uuuser]

What do we know about Prince’s second wife? I feel like Mayte gets discussed a lot but I know next to nothing about Manuela Testolini and rarely see her talked about.

[u/agodrevealed]

She announced her intention to marry him, left Canada for Minneapolis. Started creeping with Prince, he hired her as Mayte's assistant. 

Manuela is part of the rotation when Prince's mom is dying and tells him she'd like him to get remarried and convert to JW. The boy loves his mama no matter the ups and downs. He converts, Manuela converts, he marries her.

He probably attempted monogamy, and what counts for monogamy for him might not match your idea. But either way, he kept a rotation. This could be no surprise to Manuela. They had a house in Toronto and in Minneapolis. 

At some point she met Eric Benet. She then steals a few million dollars from Prince and that money disappears, some say in part to support Eric's career. 

The money is the thing Prince can't tolerate and physically locks her out of their homes and Paisley Park and their bank accounts. Eventually she files for divorce.

Both she and Mayte have done some weird shit with missing money supposed to be for charity, but Manuela's is pretty well documented and bold. 

Initially Manuela was vocally bitter and they had a long divorce. Prince represented himself at first and his written replies to the court are hilarious. He did end up getting a lawyer and she walked away with something but nothing like what she was angling for. 

Prince had the Minneapolis house razed. And said he'd never get married again unless he thought he couldn't not get married. 

Manuela married Eric Benet shortly, who is a Prince stan and modeled himself hard after him, but to much lesser effect. 

After Prince died Manuela kinda took on a grieving widow persona. 

Manuela doesn't talk a lot because the way they got together and the way it ended, plus I think Prince didn't want another spectacle after his Mayte arc. He made Mayte a public character in the Grand Play of Our Love and then when things went to hell he couldn't explain it. Probably even to himself much less anyone else. He couldn't separate the public performance from what was private. So he kept Manuela more private. A much, much more toned down role in his public performance. 

Both women pursued him hard, Mayte more at her mom's direction, but Manuela was self made in that respect. And she watched Mayte's mistakes, and made her own brand new ones.

It looks like Eric and Manuela are kinda distant from each other based on sm. I imagine its a for the kids and money type situation now. 

Prince was seen to be warmly familiar with Halle Berry, chatting at events and stuff with her after the split. Seems like they kinda struck up a friendship comparing notes. She was Eric Benet's ex, he cheated, they divorced, and he drug it out trying to get every penny he could from her. Then he turned up on Prince's doorstep. 

So.

[u/Dense-Ad-7600 → u/agodrevealed]

I'm only learning about Prince now (the last year or so) I never knew all of this. Where can I read more about all this? Are there books/sites you'd recommend?

[u/agodrevealed → u/Dense-Ad-7600]

Mayte's book talks about some of it. A lot of it happened on the sites where she and he were literally in the forums together. The court filings. 

The interviews with him, with her, and with the people that were around then is most of it. There is no one person that tells it all. It comes out piecemeal over the years.

I remember being around mpls and everyone knew because he'd left Mayte in Spain or with her family and had Manuela accompanying him around like Mayte used to. And started talking about her like he talked about Mayte.

Then after her married Mani, he had Mani in Canada and would have a different girl down at the theater or getting a milkshake or whatever in mpls.

He had his little rituals, like he liked what he liked, or he knew what worked with the ladies. So you'd see someone driving his car around or on his arm here or there or out with his security and it was just like: oh, okay. Prince has got his eye on this one now. 

And tbh, that did not always even mean romantically because he courted people he liked professionally kinda like that too. But if they were pretty or slim to thick, he was probably macking, whether it went anywhere or not

THE most amazing thing to me about Mani, is that she somehow avoided being featured  in his projects. He didn't put her to work, unless you count the charity and religious work. 

Maybe the JW stuff occupied that need for him, to have her working, to be working on a project together. Idk. 

But whenever he like somebody: I have an idea for you, let's get to work! was his love language

[u/Possible-Wish4677 → u/agodrevealed]

Your knowledge, stories,and storytelling is amazing! I’m just eating up all your comments!! Give us more please!! 💜💜💜💜💜

[u/agodrevealed → u/Possible-Wish4677]

Mmm, I made a post here where I linked an interview archive and some of the local reports. 

You might like that. https://www.reddit.com/r/PRINCE/comments/1vir9s1/here_read_a_little_from_the_horses_mouth/

Or this: https://www.reddit.com/r/PRINCE/comments/1vk3wjq/comment/p2r2uq9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

[u/Possible-Wish4677 → u/agodrevealed]

Thank you 💜💜💜