Can Prince really be anti-gay marriage?

Can Prince really have spoken out against same-sex relationships? Did he really tell the New Yorker: "God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever and he just cleared it all out. He was like 'Enough'"?

Now we're talking about Prince here, not Cliff Richard. You know, dressing in women's blouses, high heels, eyeliner Prince. The radically progressive artist who had people of all races, colours, creeds and sexual orientation in his band, the Revolution. The guy who adopted a female persona (Camille) to record the brilliant If I Was Your Girlfriend. But this was also the guy who gave his last album away free with the Mail on Sunday. Hmmm.

His people quickly denied the quote, telling website Dr Funkenberry: "The reporter was not allowed to use a tape recorder and so paraphrased nearly everything." This could be true; Prince rarely gives interviews and, when he does, a "no tape recorders" rule is normally in place.

The statement goes on to to say Prince never said the controversial "sticking it" quote: "Those were the WRITER'S words, not Prince's", apparently. Fair enough, although a glowing endorsement of gay marriage would have been better.

The rumours of him being anti-gay have been around for a while. There's a dramatic bit in Alex Hahn's book Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince where it details the time in 2000 where Prince was in talks to reform his Revolution band. He apparently told guitarist Wendy Melvoin (who was once involved in a same-sex relationship) through his drummer Bobby Z to hold a press conference denouncing her lifestyle.

Who knows if this is true? What we do know is that the Revolution never reformed but Wendy and Lisa did play with Prince at the Brits in 2006 and have appeared on his most recent album Planet Earth. Recently, when Wendy joined him onstage he introduced her as his best friend. When I spoke to Wendy and Lisa earlier this year, they still have a lot of love and affection for Prince with Lisa calling him "like a brother".

Whatever the validity of these claims, we've been here before. It's always a huge disappointment when an artist you've loved and lived with suddenly turns out to be horribly prejudiced or says bigoted things. Maybe it's like Joni Mitchell, one of Prince's heroes, once said: "Most of my heroes are monsters, unfortunately."