The Golden Bachelor runner-up Leslie Fhima has dished about her romance with the late superstar Prince and the shocking way in which it ended.
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Prior to Leslie's appearance on The Golden Bachelor, she had been married -- and divorced -- twice and welcomed three children.
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But a few years before Leslie got married for the first time to a man named Brad, she had a sexy and fairly secretive relationship with Prince, a legendary singer and songwriter from Minnesota who died from an accidental fentanyl overdose at age 57 in 2016.
Leslie, a 64-year-old fitness instructor from Minneapolis, opened up about how she came to date Prince during a recent episode of the "Bachelor Happy Hour" podcast.
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"I was 18 and my cousin -- his name is Bobby Z and he was Prince's drummer -- but before The Revolution even became a band, he was Prince's friend. They were very good friends, like, Bobby took him to get his driver's license and all that," Leslie told Bachelor in Paradise couple Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt.
"And not only that, but my brother was [Prince]'s personal valet for 12 years, and my sister did his makeup. And so it's a very [small world]. In Minneapolis, everybody has a Prince story, but you know, I have a good one!"
Leslie said that Bobby was the one who first introduced her to Prince.
"I mean, we were the same age and we were 18, and he was amazing. He wasn't 'Prince' then... and I would go to his house and he would play guitar and sing for me," Leslie recalled.
"You know, he was just an amazing person, and people think he's so quiet -- but he's hysterical. He's really funny. Again, the humor [in a man], I love."
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Leslie said she was dancing in a fashion show and Bobby brought Prince to the fashion show.
"He was kind of hiding behind a pole and I was coming down the stairs dancing, and after it, he goes, 'You are a sexy dancer. I'm going to write a song about you.' And I was like, 'Okay, okay,'" Leslie said with a laugh.
"That song came out a little bit after, but we just hung out and we had such a great time. And then I graduated high school and I was a professional figure skater in the Ice Follies, and then Prince started to become Prince."
Leslie claimed that every time she and Prince ended up in the same city, such as Los Angeles, they'd meet up.
"In L.A., at the Forum, he drove the limo up that ramp, and all of the girls saw me get into the limo, and then he'd be writing me all of these amazing letters throughout my time in the Ice Follies," Leslie gushed.
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"The girls would get their wine, and back then, we smoked. I only smoked for a couple of years, but we'd sit around -- it was the 70s -- and the letters, I have to say, were a little explicit."
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Leslie said she and those girlfriends still continue to talk about Leslie's romance with Prince.
"The girls that I'm still friends with from the Ice Follies, they still say, 'Gosh, remember we used to sit around and you used to read [your letters]?' They'd sit around and [daydream] going, 'Oohhh.'"
Leslie said when she returned home to Minneapolis for Christmas break, when there were no cell phones, she and Prince planned to meet at a secret location at midnight.
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"I was at my cousin's house at a party that was very close to this certain location, and I kept looking at my watch. At 11PM, I thought, 'I've got an hour. It takes me five minutes to get there.' And then I see Brad, who was my first husband, across the room," Leslie shared.
"I had known him before, but I see him, and he is so handsome. He's got these sleepy eyes, and we started talking. I was looking at my watch, it's 11:15PM and then 11:30PM -- 11:40PM, 11:45PM."
Leslie admitted she had to make "a game-time decision," recalling, "[I asked myself], 'Do I stay? This could be my husband, really,' or, 'Do I go to Prince, who is probably not going to be my husband someday?' I had to make that decision."
Serena laughed about how this scene sounded like something out of a movie.
"There is going to be a Hallmark movie about your life, for sure!" Serena gushed.
Leslie said there's actually "so much more" to the story that she could share, but she went back to when the clock turned 11:55PM at her cousin's holiday party.
"I just made that decision to stay with Brad, because I looked at him and I was like, '[You might be The One],'" Leslie said.
"I adored Prince, but at the end of the day, you know, I knew that I was only 18 -- and I had a show to go back to and another show after that in Europe."
But Leslie believed at the time that Brad would stick around and she probably wouldn't have a future with Prince.
"[Brad] was in love with me three years prior to that, so I made a decision, and we have this amazing son Zack. And [Brad and I] are friends," Leslie shared.
Joe concluded that not only did Prince write a song about Leslie, but she "stiffed" him and stood him up on a date.
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"I stiffed him!" Leslie confirmed.
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Leslie first tied the knot with Brad when she was 21-years-old, and they welcomed Zack together.
"With Brad and I, we were just really young. We kind of just grew. I don't like to say 'grew apart,' but we just became different," Leslie said, adding how Brad is "great" and is still there for her today.
And Leslie's second marriage was with a man named David, who had allegedly been unfaithful to her.
"With David, there was infidelity in that marriage," Leslie claimed.
"I tried to keep my family together as long as I possibly could, knowing what was going on, and I just couldn't do it. I wanted to stay married. That was all I wanted -- was to be a wife, a mother, have a home, and have it all."
Leslie and David welcomed two children together -- her daughter Chloe and son Eli.
"[The marriage] didn't work out, and at no fault of my own. I just couldn't stay married to someone and be in a marriage with three people," Leslie explained with a laugh.
"My children, you know, they understand. They love their dad, and they love me. I don't talk badly about him because I have nothing bad to say."
Leslie suggested that she actually prides herself on maintaining a healthy relationship with her exes.
Leslie's heartbreaking storyline on The Golden Bachelor was that she never felt "chosen" in her life by men.
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Leslie always wanted a happily-ever-after ending with a man and to live out "until death do us part" with her husband, but things just didn't work out that way for her.
Leslie was therefore devastated when Gerry rejected her and dumped her in second place on The Golden Bachelor.
Leslie said Gerry had convinced her in the Fantasy Suite that she was The One for him, but Gerry broke up with her in her hotel room in Costa Rica before proposing marriage to his The Golden Bachelor winner, Theresa Nist, with whom he's still engaged and planning an early January 2024 wedding.
Gerry might be the first of Leslie's exes with whom she doesn't remain friends. Leslie told Gerry on After the Final Rose that she didn't accept his apology, and she questioned his integrity on the "Bachelor Happy Hour" podcast.
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