This past week, it was great to meet Mayte Garcia at her book signing in New York and her subsequent interview at the Build Series in Greenwich Village. During both events, she spoke candidly about her life and love with the late great Prince Rogers Nelson. Fielding questions about her recently launched book, The Most Beautiful: My Life With Prince, Mayte was poised and open to both audiences which were filled with Purple enthusiasts.
Launching into the book this weekend, Mayte begins by speaking about her life growing up, her family and her love of dance. In particular, she goes into detail about how she discovers her passion for belly dancing and how it became an escape for her. Name dropping a number of 80s icons like Menudo and John Stamos, she reminisces about the time she was included on the show “That’s Incredible.” The show, which included human interest stories, stunts and other off-the-wall features, was one of the most widely watched series of the time.
During the segment, Mayte, who performed as “Princess Mayte”, and completed an astounding series of moves including balancing a sword on her head as well as flipping 3 quarters on her stomach by isolating her core muscles. This was a feat that was later repeated on the Arsenio Hall during the height of her days as part of the New Power Generation. As it turns out, Prince included this rare footage in the 1994 movie 3 Chains o’ Gold, which is seen by many as the coming out party for Prince and Mayte’s relationship which was still relatively new at the time.
Enjoy the footage from Mayte’s performance on That’s Incredible, her later performance on The Arsenio Hall Show as well as her full interview at The Build sessions last week in New York City:
Mayte on That’s Incredible circa 1981
Mayte on The Arsenio Hall Show circa 1993
Mayte at the Build Series 2017