Before Her Death, Tyka Nelson Reveals Her Final Conversation With Prince, And It’s NOT Good | HO!!!!

Minneapolis, MN — The world lost Prince on April 21, 2016, but for those closest to him, the questions never faded. In the years that followed, no one felt that void more sharply than his only full sibling, Tyka Nelson. For Tyka, the pain wasn’t only about losing a brother or a superstar.

It was about the haunting silence that followed their final phone call—a call she would later describe as “strange, erratic, and unfinished.” Now, with Tyka herself gone as of late 2024, her last revelations have cast a new and uneasy light on the final days of one of music’s most enigmatic icons.

The Final Call: Laughter, Deflection, and a Warning Missed

It was a Monday in April, just four days before Prince’s sudden death at Paisley Park. Tyka Nelson was on the phone with her brother, trying, as she often did, to break through his legendary reserve. The conversation, as she later recalled in interviews, was marked by a frustrating blend of humor and evasion.

“He kept avoiding questions. I kept getting mad,” Tyka told the Star Tribune in one of her last interviews. “I felt like, ‘Talk to me for two seconds.’ He’d change the subject, make a joke, and then we’d both laugh.”

That was Prince—an artist who, even on the edge of tragedy, retreated behind wit and misdirection. But Tyka, who had been his confidante and protector since childhood, sensed something deeper: “It wasn’t real laughter. He was trying to keep me at arm’s length.”

During that call, Prince made a series of unusual requests. He asked Tyka to find their half-sister Sharon’s phone number and to send a picture to another relative. There was no explanation, just quiet urgency. “It felt like he was clearing something up, or maybe making peace with the past in his own way,” Tyka said. “But he never told me why. He just kept moving the conversation along.”

The Red Flags No One Wanted to See

Looking back, Tyka realized the signs were there. Prince had lost weight. His energy was off. Just days earlier, he had been rushed to a hospital after his private jet made an emergency landing in Illinois. The official story—dehydration—didn’t sit right with Tyka. She saw her brother up close, saw the physical frailty he tried to hide from the world.

“I hugged him, and it was obvious he wasn’t well,” she recalled. “Not in a way anyone else would notice, but I could tell.”

After the hospital incident, Prince brushed off the concern. He went right back to work, performing a stripped-down, emotionally raw set in Atlanta that fans would later describe as a veiled goodbye. But to Tyka, the most chilling sign was his refusal to talk honestly. When she pressed him—“How are you really?”—he refused to elaborate.

“That was bothering me, and he knew it was,” she said. But Prince gave her nothing. The call ended in laughter, but for Tyka, it was a mask.

A Pattern of Deflection

The weeks leading up to Prince’s death were marked by a pattern familiar to those who loved him: secrecy, humor, and a refusal to admit vulnerability. Even after the emergency landing, even as his health visibly declined, Prince insisted everything was fine. Tyka, for her part, respected his boundaries—but in her final interviews, she admitted she wished she had pushed harder.

“He never wanted to talk about pain. Not physical, not emotional,” she said. “He was the showman. He had to be in control.”

But control was slipping. After Prince’s death, the world learned he had died of an accidental fentanyl overdose. The painkillers he was taking for years—first for hip injuries, then for chronic pain—had become a hidden dependency. Counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl had entered his private stash. Whether he knew the risk, or simply couldn’t face it, remains unknown.

Tyka’s Guilt and the Unfinished Conversation

Tyka Nelson carried the weight of that final phone call for the rest of her life. “I can’t keep this hidden,” she told a friend months before her own death. She meant the feeling that Prince had been trying, and failing, to say goodbye—or to ask for help.

After his passing, Tyka became the family’s public face. She handled the estate, gave interviews, and fielded questions from fans desperate for answers. But she never pretended to have closure. “It wasn’t just about what he didn’t say,” she admitted. “It was what he couldn’t say.”

Tyka’s memoir was supposed to fill in the blanks. She hinted at chapters left unwritten, at truths too raw for press releases. “We are not there yet,” she said of the book in a 2024 interview. “We’ve got a few more chapters.” But those chapters will never be finished. Tyka died in November 2024, her own health issues kept as private as her brother’s.

The Legacy of Silence

In the aftermath, Tyka’s words have taken on new weight. She was the last person to share both of Prince’s parents, the last living link to his childhood. For years, she protected his secrets, even as she struggled to understand them herself. The final call, she said, was “a red flag I didn’t understand until it was too late.”

Prince’s death was ruled an accident, but the pattern—pain, secrecy, deflection—was no accident at all. It was the result of a lifetime spent hiding pain behind genius, and of a family system that prized privacy over disclosure. Tyka, in her final months, tried to break that pattern. “I really wasn’t a singer. I’m a writer. I just happened to be able to sing,” she said at her farewell show in June 2024, held on what would have been Prince’s 66th birthday. “I enjoy singing, but I’m a writer.” She wanted to tell the story—hers, and his.

The Final Word

Tyka Nelson’s last public appearances were marked by candor and exhaustion. She admitted she was “getting older,” that she was “the last link” for many fans. But the final truth, the one she and Prince both carried, may never be known. Their last conversation is frozen in time: laughter, redirection, and the words left unsaid.

In the end, Tyka’s greatest revelation was not a secret, but a warning. “If someone you love is pushing you away,” she said, “don’t stop asking. Don’t stop trying. Because sometimes, you don’t get another chance.”

The curtain has fallen on both siblings now. What remains is the silence between them—a silence that, for Tyka, was never closure, only a question that will echo as long as Prince’s music is played.