Prince Opens Up About His Youth

It's hard to believe, but even the supremely cool being known as Prince was teased as a child, in an shining example of how not to judge a book by its cover.

"The first thing I did is,” Prince tells PBS' Tavis Smiley in a new interview. “I went into myself and I taught myself music. My father left his piano at the house when he left and I wasn’t allowed to play it when he was there because I wasn’t as good as him so when he left I was determined to get as good as him."

And practice he did, laying the foundation for his future rock star status by perfecting his talent, until people started treating him differently.

"I taught myself how to play music and I just stuck with it and I did it all the time and sooner or later people in the neighborhood heard about me and they started to talk about me and it wasn’t in the teasing fashion, it was more like, 'Wow look what he can do...' Once I got that support from people that I believed I could do anything," he reveals.

See a clip below and check your local listings for the interview, airing April 27 and 28 on PBS: