‘Eye Hate U’: the brutal song Prince wrote about Carmen Electra
Most legendary artists are known to spread their songwriting across many different projects. Since some bands have their trademark sounds, giving something risky to another act makes more sense to see if it works before taking on the role in their outfit. Prince would not be limited to just one side project, so he made a whole enterprise around his music.
During his prime, ‘The Purple One’ had much more than just Purple Rain under his belt, helping get new projects off the ground with Sheila E and Moris Day and The Time. While also helming hits for The Bangles like ‘Manic Monday’ or ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ being covered by Sinead O’Connor, Prince found another musical project with Carmen Electra.
After carving out a career as a model, Prince got Electra one of her first musical gigs, even letting her record an album in Paisley Park in 1993. When cutting her teeth, Electra talked about Prince’s workaholic mentality, telling GQ, “He never slept—he couldn’t sleep. I would wake up alone: ‘Where’d he go?’ And his housekeeper said, ‘He’s in the studio.’ Or he would leave the sweetest little notes on the stairs that would say: ‘Had to work! Couldn’t sleep. Come see me.'”
It didn’t take long for Prince and Electra’s relationship to become more involved, with Electra spending nights at the studio with him. Prince was running around on the side, though, and it ended up getting to Electra, who decided to return the favour by distancing herself from him, saying, “I don’t know one beautiful woman who didn’t want to be with him. But it did hurt me. It hurt me really bad. And I was too young to really communicate with him, so I just kind of pulled away. And during that time, I went out with a guy—I hadn’t slept with this person—and Prince found out”.
Rather than confront her about it, Prince put his feelings in the one place he can be honest: his songs. Penning ‘Eye Hate U’, Prince was bitterly upset by Electra pulling away from him, singing about how every second coming back to her is a waste of time. Though it’s easy to see it as a typical breakup song, the line between fiction and reality blurs during the breakdown.
As the song rises in tension, the breakdown features a spoken-word monologue from Prince where he questions this girl for playing him for a fool and committing too many counts of heartbreak. There is a hint of seduction in the final lines of this verse, but it’s only to emphasise how much he hates the fact that she cheated on him.
The most heartbreaking line comes towards the end, where Prince says he hates her because he loved her so much. Although the tune made for a great single for the triple album The Gold Experience, Electra remembers crying when she heard the finished version of the song, saying, “It was hard to hear. And it was even harder to hear the parts of the song that said it could have been a completely different way. Then to say, ‘I hate you because I love you’—I literally cried in front of him. I think he just wanted me to hear it and know that he was really upset. Then he flew me back to Los Angeles”.
Although the relationship fractured in the late ’90s, Electra still had feelings for Prince until his death. In a memorial story for People magazine, Electra mentioned, “I guess what I always wanted to tell him after we stopped communicating is that I really loved him, and I just felt like I needed to be successful on my own”. Electra may have become a star in her own right after working with ‘The Purple One’, but looking back on it, Prince might have been the one that got away.
