Prince protegee Judith Hill reveals how star fell unconscious on private jet

Judith Hill has spoken out two months after the singer and composer's death

Prince and Judith Hill had worked together for many years (AP)

Judith Hill, a singer and former girlfriend of Prince, has told how she saved his life when he fell unconscious on his private jet, days before he died at his Minnesota home.

In her first interview since his death in April, Judith Hill has said she cannot stop replaying in her mind the moment they were flying back from a concert in Atlanta when he lost consciousness.

“His eyes fixed,” she told the New York Times. She said she was glad she had not been looking away at that moment, or else she may have thought he had fallen asleep. “Thankfully, I happened to be looking into his face.”

The singer has spoken for the first time since Prince's death in April (JudithHill.Com)

The account from Ms Hill provides new details of the incident, just days before the multi-instrumentalist died of an accidental overdose of the opioid painkiller fentanyl.

On that April 15 flight aboard Prince’s private jet, Ms Hill immediately contacted the musician’s longtime friend and aide, Kirk Johnson, the only other person on board. When they could not rouse Prince, they alerted the pilot, who called air traffic controllers in Chicago for help at 1.12am.

“We knew it was only a matter of time; we had to get down,” said Ms Hill. “We didn’t have anything on the plane to help him.”

At 1.17am, the plane made an emergency landing in Moline, Illinois, where an ambulance met them. Paramedics and Mr Johnson carried Prince, 57, into the vehicle, and he was revived on the tarmac with a shot of Narcan, which is typically used to treat opioid overdoses, said the newspaper. Prince was then taken to the nearby Trinity Moline Hospital.

Prince was found dead in an elevator at his home in Carver County, outside Minneapolis (Getty Images)

By the time they arrived, he was awake and talking, Ms Hill said, “which was such a relief to me, because I thought he was gone.” She had never seen anything like that happen to him and had no idea what caused his condition.

Prince had a reputation for clean living and largely followed a vegan diet. But other friends have acknowledged that Prince apparently became dependent on painkillers.

Earlier this month, a post-mortem examination revealed that Prince had died from an overdose of fentanyl, a powerful painkiller that is up to 50 times more potent than heroin.

Investigators are trying to determine how Prince obtained the drug it. At least one friend has said he suffered from intense knee and hip pain from many years of stage performances.

The results raised the possibility that anyone who provided the drug illegally could face criminal charges. Although the death was formally ruled an accident, that merely signified that it was not intentional and in no way precludes prosecution.

According to a one-page report released by the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office, Prince administered the drug himself on an unknown date.

Ms Hill, a rising, Grammy-winning artist in her own right, was an intimate friend of the musician.

She recorded and performed with him at Paisley Park, leaving her home near Los Angeles to spend half of most months there, and opened for him in concert, in Baltimore, Detroit and Washington. He co-produced her 2015 debut album, Back in Time

“I was with Prince the last two years of my life,” she said. “Now he’s gone, and I realise I was leaning on him a lot. And that’s what’s scary. I’m on my own.”