DaniLeigh impersonated Prince and it shocked and delighted him

When singer and dancer DaniLeigh was 18 years old, a superstar intervened and her life was changed forever. 

Leigh was living in Los Angeles. She'd moved there from Miami when she was 15 to pursue her career as an entertainer. She was making music and videos as half of the rap/music/dance duo Curly Fryz, so she had a web presence. But she had never met Prince or tried to correspond with him. It was the superstar who reached out to her. 

"I got an email…saying Prince the artist wants me to direct his video for (the song) Breakfast Can Wait. To pick a choreographer and submit a video," Leigh tells host Brent Bambury. 

It was an astonishing bolt from the blue, especially since Leigh had no idea how she got on superstar's radar. 

"I, to this date, have never known. I've asked him plenty of times, like, what was it that he saw. And he never told me."  

Leigh, who had never directed a music video before, hit a snag while casting. She had imagined Prince would be in the video. When he said that wasn't possible, she decided to play Prince herself. 

Leigh's impersonation of the tiny star is uncanny. She captures his ambiguity, his precision in movement, his implacable cool. And she surprised him with her casting choice at the screening, which was the first time they met. 

"I was nervous" Leigh tells Bambury. But Prince quickly put her at ease. "The first thing he did was he handed me candy." 

Then Prince saw the video, not knowing she would be impersonating him. 

"That little factor of the video he didn't know about. Then when he saw it he was like, 'That's genius'," Leigh says. "He said I played Prince better than he did."

Leigh and Prince became friends and she joined a group of women, usually female musicians, who were seen as protégés of the artist. She shared her music with him and he offered criticism. 

"I'd be very particular about what I'd send him and sometimes he'd be like, 'You need to be stronger lyrically,'" says Leigh. But their relationship was more than a mentorship. "We were very close. I really consider him a very good friend."

The last time Dani Leigh saw Prince was about 7 months ago in L.A. "He invited me and my family to go to this restaurant in Hollywood to go salsa dancing." 

Her parents and two sisters joined Prince, but on that occasion Prince didn't bust any moves. He was a wallflower. 

"He just loved to watch people dance."