Pop
The Bangles' Susanna Hoffs on Prince walking out of a jam session without saying goodbye and 40 years of Manic Monday
Susanna Hoffs has reflected on her friendship with Prince and the life‑changing gift of Manic Monday, revealing the band once assumed he went off them when he abruptly left a jamming session.
Susanna Hoffs has shared new memories of her long‑running connection with Prince, recalling how The Bangles once believed they were “done” with the music icon after he slipped out of a studio session without saying goodbye.
Speaking to PEOPLE, the band’s former lead singer reflected on the friendship that led Prince to give the group the now‑classic track Manic Monday - a moment she says changed everything.
Hoffs explained that Prince had sent her the original cassette recording of the song, complete with his own copyright mark: “I was told, ‘Prince has something for you, come to the studio.'"
When she arrived, Prince was already deep into a recording session and had left the tape at the front desk.
She proudly said: “I kept it all these years."
Prince had become a fan after seeing The Bangles’ video for Hero Takes a Fall, which Hoffs co‑wrote with guitarist Vicki Peterson.
She laughed: “It was the most cheesy ’80s video.
“But that’s what Prince saw when he saw me in the French maid outfit. That’s when I got the Manic Monday cassette. He was a fan of the band.”
She credits that moment with altering her career trajectory: “It completely changed my life.”
Hoffs said she stayed in touch with Prince “as much as I could” until his death in 2016, and recalled one particularly memorable encounter at Sunset Sound.
After a Bangles show at The Greek Theatre, Prince invited the band to play.
She recounted: “He only wanted to play Bangles songs.
“And then all of a sudden we realised he had just left and didn’t say goodbye. I was like, ‘Okay, we’re done. Thanks, Prince. That was fun.’ It was genuinely fun. He was such a character.”
Reflecting on his legacy, Hoffs described Prince as an “iconoclast, a brilliant, genius iconoclast,” adding that she doesn’t believe there will ever be another artist like him.
Forty years on, she still sees Manic Monday as “the gift that keeps on giving".
