Mayte Garcia on life with Prince

Mayte Garcia, Prince's first wife, has become the first Prince associate to write a book about him. She says "The Most Beautiful: My Life With Prince" was done with love and respect. Much of the book is about Garcia's life, as a star teenage belly dancer, lover of Motley Crue's Tommy Lee and a single mother of a 5-year-old girl. There's also a great deal about her 11 years with Prince.

Garcia will return to Minnesota this week to sign books at Mall of America and the University Club in St. Paul and to lead a belly-dancing class in Minneapolis.

In an hourlong conversation last week from her home in Los Angeles, Garcia, 43, touched on various topics, including Prince's obsession with privacy, her relationship with his second wife and her performance at last fall's tribute concert in St. Paul.

"For me, Minneapolis will always have a special place in my heart," said the Alabama-born, North Carolina-reared dancer/actress, who went to high school in Germany while her father was in the U.S. military. "It's where our son was born and I spent a lot of amazing years there. Of course, it's bittersweet now but I always love feeling the energy there."

"Pretty much my whole pregnancy, I'd walk it all the time," she recalled. "That was my getaway from Paisley Park. I'd always hit up Nordstrom. The perfume section was something I loved. I'd go smell new scents. I remember the Wisconsin cheese place and I'd always watch people there."

She began working on a book several years ago to tell her life story. "A lot of trauma I made myself forget," she said. "I was very into journals." She delved into this project in earnest in September. She worked with an uncredited ghost writer named Joni Rodgers, who'd collaborated with Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth and actress Swoosie Kurtz on their books.

"I specifically chose a woman who'd lost a child because that was the most important part of the book and I wanted to be as delicate as possible," Garcia said in explaining why she chose Rodgers. "We went back and forth a lot with that. I needed help finding the words."

"I was married to him. There's a level of respect you want to hold. I worked for him, as well. I met him when I was 16. My father gave him legal guardianship over me. It was a different relationship" from what his other employees had.

Garcia checked into Abbott Northwestern Hospital in 1996 under the pseudonym Mia Gregory and hence the "unnamed" baby was cited as "Boy Gregory" on his death certificate after dying of complications of Pfeiffer syndrome.

"For so many years it would bother me that people would write 'Boy Gregory,' I have to reveal this," said Garcia, who explained in the book that "Amiir" means Prince in Arabic. "I revealed it at the memorial [service after Prince's death last April]. It was something Prince would have liked, as well. I don't think he knew how to handle it. Doing it is such a relief for me. People acknowledging our son has being so healing for me."

"People are saying they love seeing a side of him that makes them love him even more," Garcia said.

On the other hand, some detractors have expressed their displeasure about Garcia disclosing personal things about the obsessively private Prince.

In 2008, Garcia's sister took her on a rare club outing in Los Angeles and the DJ told them Prince was there. His ex approached him. Twice, he asked her what her name was. Then, he said he was joking.

"We talked for a very, very long time. It was a good talk. It was kind of personal and then he'd get into his beliefs and I'd debate it."

"I thought it was a little soon when it opened. I also understand the predicament the estate was in. I went to go see it. It was still fresh. But I heard Prince say it: 'This is going to be Graceland. This will be a museum when I'm not here.' But then there were many times when he said, 'I'm not going to die.' So … it was back and forth.

"When I saw his urn when I went to the memorial, it felt exactly like when I saw my son in the urn. It was like 'He's not there. His spirit is way above us.' It was that struggle."

"It was very awkward. I definitely had a couple breakdowns. I went onstage thinking 'I don't know if I can do this.' The lovely singer Saida came on and she started singing and it helped. And seeing all the love in the audience was amazing. Of course, a lot of pain and sorrow. But there's a lot of love for him. So it's healing."

"If you have a guy over and there's a whole bunch of china from your wedding, it's not a good idea," she explained.

His clothing was sold to raise money for Garcia's nonprofit animal rescue foundation.

"After he died, it turned into a negative with some fans. What am I going to do? Hang on to it? Put it in storage? Donate it to who? That's what I deal with.

"I'll probably keep something. It's not physical. A song that he wrote for me. A version recorded for me where he's singing my name. Physical things are great but are they necessary? I just want to appreciate what I have in my heart for him."

"For many years, it was hard for me to accept because Prince and I had gone through so much," Garcia said, referring to their late son and then a subsequent miscarriage. "We were trying to heal. I didn't think very highly of her. It wasn't until she divorced him that she e-mailed me. We're the only people that can talk about him and understand and relate. I wouldn't say it is a friendship. We'd have lunch and dinner once in a while. When I got my daughter, she was very supportive. She's the one that called me when he passed. It's bittersweet. It's complicated. There's a love and a sense of sadness. I'd say maybe resentment. But love overpowers it."

Twitter: @JonBream • 612-673-1719