In the early 1990s, Prince was embroiled in a contractual dispute with Warner Bros., his record company. He felt they were restraining his creativity by not allowing him to release albums as frequently as he desired. In 1993, in an act of rebellion, he changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, which was a combination of the male and female gender symbols, in order to free himself from his contract obligations to Warner Bros. Since the symbol had no pronunciation, he was often referred to as “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince” during that period. He returned to using the name Prince in 2000, after his publishing contract with Warner Bros. expired.
Could’ve picked something easier to pronounce, though.
It was actually brilliant. Got everyone talking about him without really giving up ‘Prince’ in the public consciousness.
Never thought of it that way but yeah. Gave up his name without actually giving it up. Brilliant. That guy was savy as fuck. Also a genius.
I asked GPT why: