*Aretha Franklin’s family confirmed to Detroit’s WDIV-TV on Monday that the Grammy-winning singer is “gravely ill.”
WDIV anchor Evrod Cassimy wrote in a tweet: “I spoke with her family members this morning. She is asking for your prayers at this time.”
Roger Friedman’s Showbiz 411 was first to break the news, saying that the 76-year-old soul legend is “surrounded by “family and people close to her” in Detroit.
Franklin, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2010, last performed in November 2017 for the Elton John AIDS Foundation in New York. Her final public performance was in Philadelphia in August 2017, Yahoo reports.
“It was a miraculous show as Aretha was already then fighting exhaustion and dehydration,” Friedman wrote, describing the Philadelphia performance.
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Franklin, whose hits include “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” (1968), “Day Dreaming” (1972), “Jump to It” (1982), and “Freeway of Love” (1985), became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 2005, then-president George W. Bush awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest award for an American civilian.
She sang at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration in January 2009.
Earlier this year, Franklin canceled two concerts scheduled in New Jersey, per doctors orders. According to a statement from her management team, she was “extremely disappointed she cannot perform as she had expected and hoped to.”
Last year, Franklin announced plans to retire after releasing one final album, saying she would perform at “some select things.”
As noted by Twitter user @kazweida: “Aretha Franklin was a teenage mom who had her 1st child at 14 & her 2nd at 16. She didn’t let that stop her from becoming the Queen of Soul.”
A biopic starring Jennifer Hudson as Franklin is scheduled to start filming in 2019.
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