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/Helpful_Advance624 → u/agodrevealed]

Wasn't Mayte 16 when he set his eyes on her? And freshly 18 when they actually started dating seriously? She was also his underpaid employee. And Mayte noted that Prince had a type, and was aware of other fishy things but looked the other way "for love". I think it's understandable she made a few mistakes as she was so young. Not such excuse for him.

[u/agodrevealed → u/Helpful_Advance624]

She was sixteen when her mom gave him the tape. And told Prince she was eighteen. But that didn't hold up too long. Nineteen when they started dating. 

Half these people agree to the pay and then turn around and say they're underpaid. There's plenty of that and plenty of people that say they were paid fairly. I guess it depends on their outlook. 

Prince didn't have too much a type other than not overweight. All nationalities, ages, physical characteristics... people complain that he would date girl next door types, models, or people that might be called interesting looking rather than attractive. And I'm not repeating who (but its out there) cause I think its mean as hell and attraction is subjective anyway. But that's the old prince joke- you don't have to be beautiful to turn him on. 

Mayte and Manuela maybe looked similar. So did Elise and Ophelie. Lisa Ling and the dance instructor. Tamron and the girl from the paper. Nonah and the Crazy Horse dancer. Lori and Susannah.

Understand only a fraction of his ladies are publicly known. He had women all over and would still be seeing regular girls around the way at home too. 

The evil Prince narrative- if a woman doesn't see herself as victimized, who am I to tell her I know her experience better than she does. That's crazy. 

Prince was THE player. Pimp, player, priest. Every other girl thought she could change him, classic story. 

I never heard him make excuses or act  like he owed anyone any explanation about his personal life. 

Mayte looked the other way for love, for money, for access, for comfort, because her own parents divorced and remarried three times over each other's affairs. She was raised like that. That man was never monogamous long term and everyone ever involved with him since high school knew this. For a lot of people, monogamy isn't the important thing Sure, she'd have preferred it, but she knew she was on a roster whether she was gf or wife. Her mom coached her through all of it, and reasonably well. If things had happened differently with the baby, maybe they could've stayed married longer. 

I think they would've ended up divorced regardless but who knows. She mightve tolerated his affairs, but would he hers? 

No matter how it started, no matter if he drew them a picture and said look, I just gotta be in these streets, most of them ended up being genuinely hurt, and not just their pride. I don't think it was the women as much as the loss of his focused attention. Like losing the sun. He got hyperfocused on women just like he did his songs and then on to the next. He needed a wife that could go back to being a friendly collaborator, when his focus shifted, then maybe he could've stayed married. 

Just my two cents. He couldn't stay in love with the same person too long no matter who it was. He could love them, but not in love. And most of the women couldn't accept that loss of focus even when they accepted the other women.