New Girl had some truly memorable guest stars, but the most special of all was definitely Prince, who even stopped the cameo of a famous family who was set to appear in the same episode as him – and they were the Kardashians. Created by Elizabeth Meriwether, New Girl made its debut on Fox in 2011, and it was so well-received by critics and viewers that it lived on for six more seasons, coming to an end in 2018. The series was mostly praised for its sense of humor and the performances of its main cast, which made it quite popular even among some big names in the entertainment industry.
New Girl followed Jess Day (Zooey Deschanel), a young teacher who after finding out that her boyfriend was cheating on her, moved into a loft with three strangers she casually found on the internet. After a period of adjustment, which wasn’t easy for anyone, Jess became very close to her roommates Schmidt (Max Greenfield), Nick Miller (Jake Johnson), and Winston (Lamorne Morris), with her best friend Cece (Hannah Simone) also joining the fun. As mentioned above, New Girl was a big hit, and became very popular, to the point where it was able to have some big names as guest stars, as were Jamie Lee Curtis, Taylor Swift, and Prince.
The legendary musician Prince was the biggest guest star New Girl had, and his appearance was made possible thanks to him being a big fan of the show. Although the original plan was for him to appear in season 2’s episode “Virgins”, he turned down the offer, but around the time New Girl secured the post-Super Bowl XLVIII timeslot, Prince enquired about making a guest appearance on the show, which the crew obviously couldn’t let pass. The episode, appropriately titled “Prince”, was written around him, and Prince even had some ideas for the story and other details, and one of those made the crew cancel a very big cameo and rewrite the script.
According to Zooey Deschanel, as the episode was all about a party at Prince’s home, there were going to be various celebrities there, and among those were some members of the Kardashian clan. Deschanel shared that “someone was friends with some of the Kardashians and had made a phone call”, and two of them were set to appear. She went on the explain that the day Prince was supposed to arrive to shot his scenes, she was approached by one of the P.A’s who said she needed all the scripts and call sheets, and proceeded to burn them all. This was because Prince found out some Kardashians were going to appear in his episode, and so demanded that they be cut. Lamorne Morris later confirmed this (though without dropping names), sharing that Prince, upon learning about the Kardashians' cameo, said “they would never be invited to a Prince party”.
Prince’s distaste for the Kardashian family can be traced back to 2011, when during a concert, Prince invited Kim Kardashian to the stage to dance with him, but all she did was stand there awkwardly and clap – annoyed, Prince told her to “get off the stage”. Prince took full control of New Girl to make sure his appearance was truly memorable (after all, it was one of only two TV roles in his career), and given his legacy and strong presence, it’s not surprising the team behind New Girl went to great lengths in order to have him in the series. Ultimately, it all worked out for the best, with “Prince” becoming the most-watched episode of the series at the time, and not being part of it surely didn’t affect the Kardashians' careers at all.