Prince Recalls Childhood Epilepsy, Seizures

Prince suffered from epilepsy as a child, the musician told Tavis Smiley on his PBS show last night. "I've never spoken about this before, but I was born epileptic, and I used to have seizures when I was young," Prince told Smiley. "My mother and father didn't know what to do or how to handle it, but they did the best they could with what little they had."

“My mother told me one day I walked into her and said, 'Mom, I'm not gonna be sick anymore,'” Prince recalled. “And she said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because an angel told me so.' Now, I don't remember saying it, that's just what she told me.” The musician also said he was teased in school, which is partly why he became "as flashy as I could and as noisy as I could" early in his career.
(More Prince stories.)