Nicholas Cage says he won't be partying in public anymore after karaoke video went viral

Nicolas Cage says he'll be keeping a low profile from now on. Photo / Getty Images.

Hollywood star Nicholas Cage says he won't be spending anymore nights out on the town.

The National Treasure star reportedly plans on staying at home from now on after a video of him attempting to sing Prince's Purple Rain at a Karaoke bar surfaced in the tabloids earlier this year.

"You go to a karaoke bar with a male friend in the neighbourhood, the bar says 'no videotaping' and suddenly, there's two different videos of you doing karaoke," Cage said in an interview with the New York Times Magazine. "Who did that? Who exposed the videotape? Who sold it?"

The 55-year-old actor says his singing "was more like primal-scream therapy" and regrets that the clip went viral around the anniversary of Prince's death, while he also remains annoyed that his own privacy was breached.

"Everyone knows how much I admire him as an artist. But honestly, I wasn't even doing that to sing," he told the New York Times Magazine.

"It was more like primal-scream therapy. It was a holiday weekend, and I didn't want to go anywhere, but my friend who was with me said: "You can't sit here in your apartment. You've got to go out." So I went to the one place in my neighborhood that I knew had no video recording, just to have some fun, and that became everybody's business."

Cage goes on to reiterate the fact that he now prefers to stay home and out of the public eye but laments the fact he feels unable to enjoy himself like anyone else.

"I'd rather just stay at home. I don't think I can decompress ever again, even at a karaoke bar. It's too vulnerable. I'm not trying to complain. It's a fact of life that I have to accept. I'd much rather let my work and not my personal life speak for me."

- Additional reporting by the New York Times Magazine