Carlos Boozer Recalls Renting House To Prince

SALT LAKE CITY – Carlos Boozer has cleared up the full details on his now-infamous home rental saga with rock and roll superstar Prince.

The former NBA All-Star was in Utah being honored by the Jazz for his tenure with the team and shared details of the famed story.

Rather than break up the story, here’s the transcript from Boozer himself on his incredible run-in with the late musical genius.

Carlos Boozer Rents Bel-Air Home To Prince

I bought a house in Bel-Air, it was actually right before I came to the Jazz for training camp. So I bought a crib out there, it was crazy — like 18,000 square feet was a lot of house. We just got to decorating and probably spent maybe like three or four days in the house at the time which means me and my ex-wife CeCe so just me and we didn’t even have the kids yet.

First of all, I bought the crib and I moved here to Utah, come in here for the season, and my realtor in LA, Roxanne, kept hitting me up saying “someone wants to rent your house,” and I was like, “No, I ain’t even spend no time on my house.”

And then she told me that he’s willing to pay $95,000 a month and I was like, “Oh since I am going to be in Utah for the next eight, nine months,” you know.

So I flew out to LA and met him there, he came up in a limo and got out of the car. I didn’t know who it was until he got out of the car and I was looking at Roxanne and I said, “Yo, that’s Prince, man.” She was like, “Yeah.”

.@MisterCBooz was a two-time @NBAAllStar and All-NBA team honoree during his time with the @utahjazz. #TakeNote https://t.co/0XMaT1uGZT

— KSL Sports (@kslsports) April 7, 2022

We walked around the house for maybe like an hour — showed him some of the intricacies of the house. On the rooftop, it was like a tanning deck but also had a tennis court that I turned into a basketball court, and he’s a huge basketball fan.

He grew up in Minnesota, he was a big Kevin Garnett fan and talked about KG because KG for me was like probably the toughest guy I had to defend, he was just in your face all the time, very talented, bought so much passion — He’d be telling us like his love for the game, the best defensive big guy I ever saw my career.

So we had conversations about KG and then he rented the crib, so that was all good.

I come back here, it happened to be the year when I like tore my hamstring like four or five times, and so there was this really good physical therapist in LA named Judy Seto who the Lakers hired a couple of years ago — she’s phenomenal.

So I went out to LA to see her, and I kept calling Prince — I was going to stop by the house to see if he need something to let me know, but he wouldn’t return my call.

I pulled up to the house, I had these two golden lions on the gate, it was a big black gate, and it wasn’t there, so I get to the address and I’m like, “Is this the right address?”

Never forget the time when Prince painted Carlos Boozer's house pic.twitter.com/463JS601Tx

— Tom Hawking (@tom_hawking) December 5, 2013

So I drive back down the street, come back up the street, it was a symbol that I’ve never seen before, and I was like, “What is this, whose house is this?”

So I put my code into the gate and it opened up, so I drove in or whatever, get upstairs, and he literally had ripped out every single thing in my house — 18,000 square feet and put into a storage facility, and then everything was purple and black everywhere.

There was purple and black carpet, a purple and black bed, I had a weight room, he turned the weight room into a nightclub with a disco ball and a DJ booth, which I thought was pretty cool.

He had a massage parlor in one room, he transformed the entire house so it looked like his, and I’m not used to this, like I’ve never rented a house to anybody.

I’m 22, 23, I’m kind of beside myself, so I’m calling and calling, it’s the number that I thought —  I’m like, “Did he change the number on me?” Like it’s like an ex-girlfriend going on right now.

When I finally get a hold of him, he’s in Asia doing a tour for his album and he finally hits me back and he’s like, “Booze, don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

Here's a crazy video of Quin Snyder breaking down Carlos Boozer with Charles Barkley at the 2002 NBA draft. https://t.co/m6i46uo6PM

— Ben Anderson (@BensHoops) April 1, 2020

He wired me $500,000 to ease my mind and he was like, “When I move out it’ll be like I was never there.”

So long story short, he rents my crib out for a year, $95,000 grand a month, they put everything, 18,000 square feet of the house into storage and redecorated the entire house down to the forks — then wires me half a mil just to ease my mind.

And then when I got there at the end of his lease, it was like he was never there. That’s how much money Prince had.

So, wary landlords, if a rockstar rings checking on your rental, it might be worth answering their calls.

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