Yara Shahidi received fan letter from Prince before his death

Tragic superstar Prince shared his pride at young actress Yara Shahidi’s career success in a private message sent just two months before his untimely death.
Yara is the daughter of the Purple Rain icon’s longtime personal photographer, Afshin Shahidi, and he reveals the singer had always been a big supporter of his little girl’s screen career, once renting out a movie theatre to watch one of her first films.
Even after Afshin and Prince ended their professional relationship in 2011, the musician still kept tabs on Yara’s rising star, even tuning in to watch her hit TV sitcom Black-ish, and he made a point to reach out to the 17-year-old, known for her role as Zoey Johnson, just before his death in April, 2016.
Afshin tells U.S. breakfast show Good Morning America, “Two months before he passed, he had sent her (Yara) a private message just saying, ‘I love your show Black-ish and your character’s one of my favourite characters on the show. And say hi to your pops.'”
The photographer was touched by his former boss’ note, and was further moved when he later discovered Prince had kept a framed, signed photo of Yara on his desk.
“After he passed I went into Prince’s office and there’s a picture of Yara in his office still…, sitting on his desk,” an emotional Afshin shared. “It was incredible.”
A young Yara had personalised the image, addressing her legendary fan as “Mr. Prince”, and signing it with her name alongside a drawing of a heart and a smiley face.
Afshin recalled the sweet memory of Prince as he promoted his new book, Prince: A Private View, which features rare and never-before-seen photos taken during their 20 years of working together both on and off the stage.
The photo book includes a foreword written by another superstar, Beyonce.