Prince throws WNBA championship party for Minnesota Lynx at Paisley Park

Lindsay Whalen, Maya Moore, and Rebekkah Brunson celebrate the Lynx's WNBA championship—the team's third in five years. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)

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Never mind the Governor’s Mansion: a private Paisley Park party is turning into the Minnesota version of a White House reception. After bashes welcoming the National Association of Black Journalists (in August) and Madonna (last week), Prince helped the Minnesota Lynx celebrate their WNBA championship by inviting them to his Chanhassen studio for a private show that the Star Tribune’s Jon Bream called “one of the longest and most joyful performances at Paisley Park in years.”

Bream, who’s covered Prince’s entire career, reports that he was one of about 150 people invited to Paisley Park after the Lynx’s victory in the WNBA championship series. Prince, Bream reports, was in attendance at Target Center for last night’s decisive fifth game against the Indiana Fever, and Prince then invited the players and the team’s staff to a celebration at Paisley Park.

Maya Moore, Seimone Augustus, Sylvia Fowles, and Renee Montgomery were among the players who took Prince up on the invitation—and he was so excited, says Bream, that he didn’t even wait for the team to arrive before ripping into “Purple Rain.” Eventually the players arrived, and several players—including Augustus and Montgomery—even accepted Prince’s welcome to jump onstage to dance while video screens showed the team’s logo and the words “2015 WNBA Champions.”

Prince played with a band including 3RDEYEGIRL guitarist Donna Grantis and a host of other Paisley Park regulars—including Liv Warfield—from 12:30 to 2:30 a.m., reports Bream, and then returned to the stage for an early morning “loud jam” from about 3:00 to nearly 4:00 a.m. Then, “Prince, the party man in black with a black stocking cap, bowed, walked off the stage and headed into the crowd. When he got into the middle of the dancefloor, he feigned like he was going to fall over from exhaustion.”

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