The moment Fred Armisen met his hero Prince over mac and cheese
You should never meet your heroes, so the saying goes. After all, the pages of music history are littered with artists whose music made them beloved all over the globe despite their real-life personalities being less than endearing. However, for somebody like Fred Armisen, meeting heroes was an occupational hazard while working on Saturday Night Live. Week after week, the comedian would come face to face with iconic musicians and celebrities that he loved, with Prince being a prime example.
Prince is one of those artists who seemed to transcend ordinary life. His intense dedication to artistry and somewhat aloof public persona culminated in an unparalleled reputation for the songwriter. You could be forgiven for thinking that Prince retreated to his ethereal mothership after every performance, returning to Earth sporadically to record music and perform concerts. In reality, though, the musician was a person just like any other, with a love of parties and, of course, macaroni and cheese.
Fred Armisen was forced to reckon with the apparent normality of Prince when the songwriter appeared on Saturday Night Live in February 2006. The musician had appeared on the show twice before, both during the 1980s, but his appearance alongside Armisen in 2006 was due to be a little different from his previous appearances.
Not only was Prince supposed to perform as the musical guest, but he was also supposed to appear in a sketch. This plan quickly went downhill; however, when Prince immediately left the building following his musical rehearsal, he refused to rehearse or appear in the sketch without saying a word to any of the cast members or explaining his sudden departure.
Aside from this lost opportunity to see Prince in a sketch, his appearance on SNL went without a hitch. Following the show, the musician hosted his own afterparty, complete with a buffet, which Fred Armisen was keen to attend. As a true music obsessive, Armisen had been a diehard Prince fan for years prior to meeting the songwriter, and he attended the afterparty with the hopes of getting to speak to his musical hero.
Speaking on The Howard Stern Show alongside fellow SNL castmembers Bill Hader and Seth Myers, Armisen recalled, “He had his own afterparty after he performed on SNL. They had a little buffet of macaroni and cheese.”
He explained, “I’m such a Prince fan, and I really wanted to tell him that. I wanted him – in my ego – to say something back, something nice.” Prince was always fairly unpredictable in his actions, and Armisen came to realise this upon meeting the songwriter.
“I just walked up to him,” Armisen remembered. “He was sitting alone eating macaroni and cheese. I carefully sat down and was like, ‘Hey, I just wanted to tell you, I think you are the greatest.’” This earnest admission of adoration from Armisen did not land quite as the comedian had hoped.
Continuing, he shared, “[Prince] said, ‘You know what I think the greatest is? This macaroni and cheese.’”
Whether Prince was insulting Armisen’s work, downplaying his own influence, sharing the joys of macaroni and cheese, or simply trying to be funny, his interaction with Armisen was odd, to say the least. The comedian affirmed that Prince’s reply “didn’t feel mean” in its spirit, but it did cause Armisen to slowly back away from his musical hero – perhaps to head over to the buffet to try some of the mac and cheese himself. Either way, the interaction confirms that, even after his performances were over, Prince remained wonderfully enigmatic in his everyday life.
