Prince: The Woman Who Won a Date With the Rockstar MTV Contest Under The Cherry Moon

The story of the MTV Contest that saw one lucky fan win a date with musician Prince.

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I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.

In 1986 MTV would partner up with musician Prince to promote his new film at the time titled Under the Cherry Moon. MTV would hold a contest to give one lucky winner the chance to win a date with the musician along with several other prizes. Here’s a promo the network ran for the contest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB97NefZmE0

The winner would be 20 year old hotel chambermaid from Sheridan, Wyoming named Lisa Barber. The town’s population was less than 11,000 people. Barber would spot the ad for the contest while watching MTV with a friend one day after work., Funny enough Prince wasn’t the most famous celebrity to visit the town as it was reported that years prior Queen Elizabeth II was spotted shopping in the town. She had been invited by Sen. Malcolm Wallop. .

The Daily Beast would reach out to Prince’s publicist Robyn Riggs several years after the musician’s death to recount what happened behind the scenes. Riggs who was 25 at the time would recall reading the paper the day after the MTV contest ended. She read an interview with Barber who was asked whether she was a fan of her boss with her responding ‘Yeah, he’s OK. But I really like Motley Crue! I hope I get to meet Tommy Lee.”

Riggs fearing that the contest could unravel would head down to Billings, Montanna, the closest major airport to Sheridan. Riggs would have to give Barber a makeover from heavy metal fan to Prince fan, and had to ensure preparations were underway for her boss arrival. A convoy of trucks descended on the small town with Prince’s equipment for the concert. Prince’s band the Revolution, didn’t have a good start to the contest with guitarist Wendy Melvoin revealing in the book Prince: The Man and his music . “We had the worst flight ever from Denver to Sheridan, everyone was praying. We thought we were gonna die," with Keyboardist Lisa Coleman adding, “The plane was a VW van with wings.”


The contest almost fell apart when. Prince’s manager, would call Riggs to tell her thatthat the musician would drive himself to the movie theatre and the contest winner could ride with the band in the bus to the event. Furious, Riggs would call up Rob Friedman who was the head of the movie studo’s marketing department to give him a heads up and tell Prince’s manager and i quote “Steven, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to get with your client, you’re going to tell him that he’s going to take this girl AS HIS DATE. If he does not do that, then I’m going to haul Warner Bros. out of here. And all of our promotional dollars are going home.”

Ahead of the movie premiere Barber would spend an hour getting dolled up by Prince’s haristylist and makeup artist and was given an outfit to wear for the premiere admitting to people magazine she and i quote “usually shopped at kmart”

Barber would tell People Magazine “I was so nervous, but he told jokes in the car while he drove us to the movie theater, and I could tell he was doing his best to help me relax,” “It was such a huge deal – cameras were flashing everywhere. That night was the biggest thing to ever happen in Sheridan.”

After the movie premiere the party headed back to the local holiday inn where Prince and his band played a 45 minute set. In honor of the celebration, then Sheridan Mayor Max DeBolt proclaimed July 1, 1986, as “Prince and MTV Day.”



Prince would end up keeping a fake pearl necklace he got from Barber that night, but he wouldn’t leave her empty handed giving her a goodnight kiss at her home, along with a pair of earrings and gold necklace in addition to two tickets to an upcoming concert in Denver Barber would admit to people magazine “I went with a friend and they gave us backstage passes, but he wasn’t there after the show,” “Still, he was so sweet. He left me 13 long-stemmed red roses.”
Here’s some clips from mtv’s coverage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHdAa7t3MMY