Considered to be one of the greatest singers of all time, Aretha Franklin has died of advanced pancreatic cancer.
Aretha Franklin, whose gospel-inspired, bluesy singing earned her the title “the Queen of Soul,” has died aged 76, a family statement said Thursday. She died at her home in Detroit, surrounded by family and friends.
The “official cause of death was due to advanced pancreatic cancer of the neuroendocrine type, which was confirmed by Franklin’s oncologist, Dr. Philip Phillips of Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit,” the family statement said.
“In one of the darkest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our heart. We have lost the matriarch and rock of our family. The love she had for her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and cousins knew no bounds,” the statement went on to say.
The Guardian reports that Franklin had been in ill health since 2010, when she was diagnosed with a tumour but returned to intermittent live performance after undergoing surgery. She died of advanced pancreatic cancer. Despite having announced her retirement from performing in 2017, she was due to headline two shows at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest this April but cancelled on doctor’s orders. Her last performance was at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City during Elton John’s 25th anniversary gala for the Elton John Aids Foundation on 7 November 2017.
Tributes from around the world have poured in since the news of the singer’s death broke. “Aretha helped define the American experience,” former President Barack Obama said in a statement. “In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade — our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect. May the Queen of Soul rest in eternal peace.”
Franklin is survived by her four sons. She gave birth to her first, Clarence, when she was 13, and her second, Edward, aged 14. Ted was born in 1964, followed by Kecalf in 1970.
