Prince was responsible for the main love story in ‘New Girl’

Ross and Rachel? She should have got on the plane. Ted and Robin? How I Met Your Disappointing Finale. When it comes to iconic recent sitcom couples, Jess and Nick from New Girl have a strong claim to reign supreme. 

Jake Johnson and Zooey Deschanel were wonderfully complementary as the adorably gruff writer and the OG manic pixie dream girl, the show ending after seven seasons with the couple happily married.

It could all have been completely different if it wasn’t for the crucial intervention of a certain funky Minnesotan singer though. While appearing on Kelly Clarkson’s talk show on Wednesday, May 4th, Johnson discussed Prince’s famous cameo appearance in season three of New Girl. “Prince really liked New Girl, which was cool,” he explained. “He wanted to do the show.”

Never one to accept the status quo, Prince soon essentially got involved in the running of the show. “I saw him look at me, and he said to Zooey, ‘I would like to meet Nick now,'” Johnson recalled. “And Zooey looked at me and, obviously, whatever Prince wants so I was like (nods head) ‘Yeah.'”

The actor revealed that Prince really wanted Nick and Jess to get together (season three took place early in their courtship). “So, he said he’ll do the show if he could help them get together, and he got to live the whole fantasy,” Johnson explained.

“He changed the whole narrative?” Clarkson said in shock, to which Johnson replied, “He wanted them together and we wanted Prince! Prince is the best.”

Prince gets what Prince wants. And that wasn’t even his best intervention in the show. Deschanel once told Conan O’Brien that Prince insisted the Kardashians be cut from his episode of New Girl. Despite Kris Jenner and Khloe Kardashian filming their cameos, the scenes were removed at the request of Prince’s team.

The demands were so strong that the show’s producers had to have a “bonfire”, burning all evidence the Kardashians were ever meant to appear alongside the singer.

Check out Jake Johnson’s full interview below:

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