Troy Gua’s Le Petit Prince project is delightful. The Seattle-based artist created a handmade Prince doll and posed the miniature musician in elaborately constructed scenes that mimic its namesake’s music videos and album covers. What is not love? Well, that’s a question best asked of Prince himself, who has sent his fan a cease-and-desist order demanding he remove all Le Petit Prince images from the internet by 4pm PST tomorrow.
Poor Gua, who hasn’t even been selling reproductions of the doll, announced the shutdown via Facebook: “There are many points touched upon in the order, and I will, of course, comply with their demands, whether I agree with them as matters of artistic freedom or not,” he wrote. “I simply do not wish to fight with my hero, and it is terribly disheartening to think that he may hold ill will towards me and this project.” Now, with thanks to those who supported the project, Gua is forced erase all traces of it — and the rest of us are, once again, forced to come to terms with the fact that this legendary (and legendarily bizarre) musician is far less cool than we’d hoped. [via NME]