There are few men who, at 5ft 2in and with an oddly large head, can properly lay claim to the title of sex symbol. The one man who can is the artist formerly and once again known as Prince, who, after a period of apparently self-imposed purdah, has returned to the limelight with a new tour. True to form, he will have alongside him on stage an exotic duo known only as the Twinz, identical Caribbean babes whose primary role, aside from vocals, seems to be thrusting their sinuous forms against the singer’s thighs.

Under Prince’s supervision, the pair have cultivated an air of mystery, refusing to reveal anything so mundane as their names or ages. Quite whether their intimate on-stage relationship with the singer continues in the private realm is a matter for speculation; all the Twinz will say is that Prince is “a huge fan” of theirs and “defiantly someone who appreciates beauty and likes to have beautiful women around him”. All too true, as the Twinz are merely the latest in a long and exotic line of women with whom Prince has been linked over the years – Sheena Easton, Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles, Sherilyn Fenn, Kim Basinger, Troy Beyer and Carmen Electra among them – and who are said to have become closely acquainted with the mirrored ceiling in the bedroom of his Minneapolis residence.

It is an impressive list, not least because, viewed with a cold eye, Prince’s charms aren’t instantly evident. He is short. He sings in a girlish falsetto. He used to have a habit of dressing in high heels, lace and G-strings. Yet, somehow, the potent aura of virile sexuality he projects on stage has translated into his private life. The evidence speaks for itself: aside from his Alist conquests, Prince has run through most of the female talent on his Paisley Park record label over the years, from Apollonia and Jill Jones to the drummer Sheila E, all of whom can testify to his complex sexual allure. “He woos with language,” Apollonia confided to a friend. At one point, Prince was dating Jones and Susan Moonsie (both were said to be “resigned” to the situation). He has also dated several other of his musical protégées, including Denise Matthews, whom he dressed in raunchy outfits and renamed Vanity, after she rejected his first choice, the quaint Vagina.

Reinvention seems to be a recurring theme for the women in Prince’s life: during their collaboration in the early 1980s, Easton went from a sweet-faced Scottish native to an explicit sex siren in tight Lycra. Later that decade, Hollywood rumour had it that Prince’s sexual hold on Basinger was so potent, she was once whisked out of his house by her concerned brother.

Certainly, it seems that those who date Prince must be prepared to deal with the idiosyncratic ways of a man who is not only obsessively private but also utterly controlling. As one Hollywood source puts it: “You will never see him play a note or strike a pose that has not been thoroughly vetted. It is the same in his relationships. Prince is the boss.” So much so that his lovers have not only their dress sense dictated to them but their hairstyles, too. He does not tolerate lateness, nor are his lovers allowed to contact him: legend has it that he never takes phone calls from his women, preferring to call on his own terms.

It was Mayte Garcia who really got to Prince. She met him when she was a 16-year-old dancer, and became his lover two years later. He wrote the song The Most Beautiful Girl in the World for her, and married her in 1996. She soon became pregnant, and Prince presented her with a hacienda in Marbella overlooking the sea, complete with hair salon (which was, in fact, never used by Mayte but instead became a sanctuary for her husband). But tragedy struck: their baby was born prematurely with a rare skull deformity and died a week later. The couple’s marriage never recovered, and they divorced in 1999.

“He was always capable of monogamy, but he got bored quickly. The death of his baby changed all that,” says the gossip columnist CJ, who has followed his career for years. “It affected him in a big way.” A second wife came in the shapely form of Manuela Testolini, a college graduate 18 years Prince’s junior, who had been a devoted fan since school. She caught the singer’s eye after landing an administrative job at his studios. By then, Prince had surprised many by converting to the Jehovah’s Witnesses faith, romancing his new lover by taking her to Bible classes.

When Prince and Manuela married in Hawaii on New Year’s Eve 2001, it was in a full Jehovah’s Witnesses ceremony, and a year later the two were baptised fully into the faith at Kingdom Hall in Minnesota, wearing knee-length robes over swimsuits. The conversion must have shocked the fundamentalist preacher who once said that the only god Prince served was his genitals.

For a time, it seemed that Prince the rock star had made way for Prince the preacher. But Jehovah did not save his marriage, and in May last year, Manuela filed for divorce. He remains apparently devout, however, and some of his lewder songs (Dirty Mind, Sexy MF and Head) are now off the playlist.

Still, the man who once described sex as the “most important thing in the world” has not renounced his old ways. There’s the puzzling matter of the Twinz, who are clearly in thrall to him: “He is a cool cat, always dressed to impress. And he keeps us laughing all the time,” they giggle. And a touch of the singer’s rock-star behaviour endures: during his recent LA gigs, he is said to have asked his hotel to recarpet the penthouse in white shag and place a huge purple Prince logo on the wall. On past performance, it is hard not to imagine the Twinz enjoying the facilities.

Prince plays 21 concerts at the O2 Wednesday and September 21; www.theo2.co.uk

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