Remembering That Time Prince Was Almost in ‘The Fifth Element’

Jen Chaney on Tumblr

Prince in 2007 (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

In the wake of the shocking death of Prince last week, many stories about the singular singer are making the rounds again as the mourning continues.

Related: Prince: His Most Memorable Onscreen Moments

One of those recycled anecdotes is this bit of 1990s movie casting lore: the fact that Prince almost played talk-show host Ruby Rhod in Luc Besson’s 1997 sci-fi cult favorite The Fifth Element, information the director reminded fans about over the weekend via Twitter. He also resurfaced some of the concept art for Prince’s proposed — and highly outrageous — costume from the movie’s designer Jean Paul Gaultier.

Besson may remember that Prince ultimately dropped out of the futuristic film starring Bruce Willis and MIlla Jovovich because of his tour schedule. It also probably didn’t help that, according to Gaultier, he wasn’t a fan of the initial costume sketches for Ruby, who was ultimately played by Chris Tucker.

Chris Tucker in ‘The Fifth Element’ (Everett)

As Gaultier recalled in a 2013 Brooklyn Museum exhibit that focused on the fashion designer’s work, Prince took one look at the costume art for an ensemble made entirely of fishnets and fake body hair and decided: Uh-uh.

“I explained to Prince: ‘Eet eel fake ‘air, you know, and eet eel beaucoup, beaucoup, airy, vraiment fun, and ze back is made of sat, and on ze back were eez ze faux cul, you know, a very big faux cul.’ and I slapped my buttocks to show him how the back of the costume would be designed,” Gaultier said in a letter that was transcribed on io9. “Still not saying anything, Prince gave me this Charlie Chaplin kind of look. I could see that something had just happened, but I didn’t know what, only that he had indicated to his body guard that he wanted to leave right then and there … Later, Luc told me that Prince had been very surprised and amused — by my presentation, but that he found the costumes a bit too effeminate.“

Apparently Prince also thought that when Gaultier spoke the French words “faux cul” — meaning that Gaultier was planning to construct a fake backside for the costume — he was actually saying “f— you.” (You can get the full effect of Gaultier’s French accent when he retold the NSFW anecdote to Graham Norton in 2014.) Anyway, none of it came to pass, and Tucker got to play the role instead. Which, if you go by costar Gary Oldman’s recent comments about The Fifth Element, probably worked out for the best for Prince.

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