After talking with Robert Hilburn in 1982, Prince stopped giving interviews for three years. We talked to Hilburn

The Los Angeles Times' music critic Robert Hilburn was the only journalist to interview Prince about the 1999. In fact, Prince would not grant interviews to journalists again for several years after that, making Hilburn one of the last to speak to Prince before a lengthy period of silence from the artist. In researching Prince: The Story of 1999, Andrea Swensson had a chance to talk to Robert Hilburn, who spoke about meeting Prince in October 1982 and about seeing Prince perform leading up to the album 1999 -- most notably, at a 1981 show at the Los Angeles Coliseum where Prince opened for the Rolling Stones and was met with boos and hostility from the audience. It was an experience, Hilburn surmises, that further motivated Prince to take the music world by storm.