PRINCE & SELENA DIDN’T CELEBRATE BIRTHDAYS, BUT THEY’RE SO DESERVING OF THESE HOLIDAYS

[Guest Kurt]

The Internet is a sea of purple and vintage Prince photos today, and for good reason. The legendary pop icon would have celebrated his 58th birthday today.

The governor of his beloved home state, Minnesota has declared June 7 as Prince Day in honor of the musical genius. While the world stamps social media tributes with #HappyBirthdayPrince, it’s important to note that the enigmatic star actually didn’t celebrate his own birthday. To Prince, June 7 was always just another day.

Prince is among a group of beloved entertainers who didn’t believe in celebrating birthdays, due to their faith as Jehovah’s Witnesses. Another beloved icon, Selena Quintanilla, is also in that group. Although she’s celebrated long and wide on both her birthday and the anniversary of her death, there were no personal celebrations or birthday cards for the Tejano beauty. Two weeks after Selena was brutally gunned down on March 31, 1995, then-governor of Texas, George W. Bush, declared the singer’s birthday Selena Day.

I didn’t realize that Prince didn’t celebrate his birthday until this year. It caused me to pause a minute — as a huge lifelong Prince fan, June 7 was a national holiday in my family since I was three years old. I declared him the love of my life before pre-school, and celebrated by listening to his music for the entire day, and wearing purple when mom gave me the green light to dress myself on my own.

With such incredible legacies, it’s rather poetic that artists like Prince and Selena even transcend the idea of an ordinary birthday celebration. The holidays, the candlelit memorials and purple lit dance parties do them more justice than any mere mortal’s birthday cake.