Mayte Garcia was suicidal after losing baby son

Prince's ex-wife Mayte Garcia reportedly struggled with suicidal thoughts following the death of their baby boy.

The dancer married the Purple Rain icon in 1996 and they welcomed their son Amiir Gregory Nelson into the world later that year. The baby was born with rare genetic disorder Pfeiffer syndrome, and despite undergoing numerous medical procedures to save his life, he succumbed to the disorder at just six days old.

"Feeding tubes. Every day something new went wrong," Garcia recalls in her memoir The Most Beautiful: My Life with Prince. "After six days, he was struggling to breathe and I said to the doctor, 'He's not leaving here, is he?'"

The doctor recommended Amiir have a tracheotomy, which involved making an incision into the windpipe, to help him breathe, but Mayte grew hysterical and accused the medics of torturing the newborn.

"My husband tried to calm me down," she writes. "We stood there, coming to the same terrible place, 'We have to let him go'."

Prince and Mayte had Amiir's body cremated and when they returned home, she retreated into their room, where she remained with their son's urn, feeling suicidal, according to People magazine.

"I don't know how long I lay in bed with Amiir's ashes," she explains. "The next day - or maybe it was a week later or in another lifetime - my husband came to me and said, 'I can't be here. I have to go.' Days passed in darkness."

The couple divorced in 2000 and in her memoir, Mayte claims she later learned her husband had an assistant burn the infant's ashes along with all memorabilia from their marriage.

"In some sad, painful moment, he had it all burned, as if fire could cauterize this deep wound he couldn't close," she remarks. "I wasn't there to witness it, and I can't bear to think about it now."

Mayte suffered another tough loss last year (16) when Prince died from a prescription drug overdose, aged 57.