Aretha Franklinwas more than just the Queen of Soul, she was the Queen of Strength.
Right up until the very end, Franklin, who’d secretly lived with pancreatic cancer for nearly a decade, refused to lether ongoing health battleovershadow her lifetime of accomplishments. Holding tight to herQueen of Soultitle for five decades, she blazed a trail that included selling75 million albums, winning 18Grammy awards, and becoming the first woman to be inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and youngest artist to receive a Kennedy Honor in 1994.
But while the“Natural Woman”singer broke records and broke down barriers, she worked hard to keep her tumultuous personal life as private as possible. From losing her mother at a young age to becoming a teen mom and surviving domestic abuse, the star managed to keep shining in the midst of countless struggles.
In this week’s issue family, friends and famous peers open up about the amazing career and private world of the American icon.
Taylor Hill/Getty
“My aunt had a heck of a life,” hernephew Tim Franklin told PEOPLEafter her death, crediting her faith in God as the source of her strength. “In the end — just like in the beginning,” he said, “she reached out to the one who sustained her and refused to let go.”
News first broke on the morning of Aug. 13 thatthe legendary Queen of Soul was ailing, with sources later confirming to PEOPLE that Franklin was “gravely ill,” and another sharing thather death would be “imminent.” Shortly after, on Aug. 16, the family and publicist of Franklin announced thatthe 76-year-old music icon had diedfrom advanced pancreatic cancer of the neuroendocrine type at her Detroit-area home.
Family members and friends — includingStevie Wonder and the Reverend Jesse Jackson—flocked to Franklin’s bedsideto share her last moments with her, but little else was known about the star’s specific illness or prognosis prior to her death. And though Franklin’s remarkable career drew in eyes and ears from around the world,she demanded privacyand R-E-S-P-E-C-T when it came to fiercely guarding her personal life.
Fans speculated about Franklin’s health since sheunderwent a mystery surgery on Dec. 2, 2010.At the time she didn’t reveal what the procedure was for, saying only that it was “highly successful.” But later that week, a relative told Fox 2 in her hometown of Detroit that she had cancer, and theNational Enquirerreported that it was pancreatic.
In January 2011, Franklin said that she’s “not going to even deal with” thereports of her cancer. Through to the end, she refused to speak of it publicly.
For PEOPLE’s tribute to the Queen of Soul, who died 41 years to the day after Elvis Presley, pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday.
Health aside, when it cameto marriage and motherhood, Franklin was at her most secretive. Throughout her career, Franklin “put out a picture of her having a happy home and happy children and everything was rosy,” said biographerDavid Ritz– who spent two years working with Franklin on her 1999 memoirFrom These Rootsbefore later penning his own biography of her life, 2015’sRespect. He added “any stories to the contrary really got her mad.”
“She had a tough childhood,” Ritz told PEOPLE, referring to the fact that Franklin’s mother left the family when the singer was only 6 years old because of her husband’s infidelity. In her early teens and as her career as a gospel singer was just revving up, Franklin mothered two sons, never to reveal the identities of their fathers.
Then at 19,Franklin married Ted White, and had a son with him, named Ted “Teddy” White, Jr., 54. Ted and the singer divorced in 1969 after reports of domestic abuse surfaced, and a 1968Timearticle described how White “roughed her up” more than once. Later, she married actor Glynn Turman, whom she divorced in 1984.
Her youngest son, Kecalf, 48, was born in 1970. His name is an acronym of both his father and mother’s full names — Ken E. Cunningham (the star’s road manager) and Aretha Louise Franklin.
Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic
“She’s not atypical in her privacy, she’s just extreme,” Ritz said. “I think her strategy for emotional survival was idealization of her life in general. When you tend to idealize things, you don’t have to deal with a lot of the tough realities.”
Though the singer never publicly confirmed who fathered her older children, Ritz revealed in his book that the father of her oldest son, Clarence, 63, was Donald Burke, whom Franklin knew from school.
“Aretha went back to school after having Clarence,” the musical icon’s sister Erma said inRespect. “She was an excellent student who did well in all her classes.”
In 1957, Franklin welcomed her second child, Edward, who turns 61 this month. Franklin would then drop out of school to focus on her musical career, leading her to live a life of “silent suffering,” as her sister Erma describes inRespect. Already with four children of her own, Franklin “filled the gap” for her siblings’ children when they died.
“We had all lost our parents – she stepped in and filled the gap,” her nephew Tim added. “She was the last one of the siblings, and when my aunt Erma and my dad died within a couple months of each other, she stepped right in and put her feelings aside even though she was grieving a loss that was two months apart. She might have grieved in private, but we never saw it.”
Anthony Barboza/Getty
“The Queen of Soul — we didn’t know her,” Tim continued about how the family matriarch’s global fame paled in comparison to her enormous heart. “She was able to keep that separate from her personal life, so we never knew the Queen of Soul. Rather, we knew that was an accomplishment that she had made.”
While her accomplishments never went unnoticed, neither did her personality, as a “very real” individual with a “very optimistic” attitude.
“I think you can read her emotions really quickly, if she’s feeling happy or in a good mood, she will sit down at the piano and start singing or serenading you,” music and biopic producer Harvey Mason Jr. explained to PEOPLE. “If she’s going through something, I think she has the emotions right there for everyone to see.”
“I think one of the things I found interesting about her is her knowledge of music and so many different genres of music, she would sit at the piano and start playing songs I would never expect her to know, singing opera, substituting for Pavarotti at the Grammys the one year is a perfect example of that,” he added. “She can go back and forth between different genres seamlessly and effortlessly and that is something that is really unique about her.”
Alex Wong/Getty Images
One thing the star never hid was her show-stopping sense of style. During Franklin’s performance atPresident Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, herSwarovski-crystal-studded hatimmediately stole the show and became the day’s most popular meme. And thedesigner behind the topper, Luke Song ofMr. Song Millinery,spoke to PEOPLE about his close relationship with the Queen, remembering her as “so soft spoken” and “classy all the way.”
“I’ve known her at least 20 years … she’s been frequenting our showroom for as long as I can remember. I’ve made hundreds of hats for her,” says the Detroit-based designer who often made hats for Franklin to wear to church.
“She would come into the showroom and she definitely knew what she wanted. A lot of times she brought in her own designs and brought in pictures and references,” Song adds.
Always dressed to the nines and arriving in style in a big white limo with her entourage in tow, Song says Franklin was “very down to earth and very personable. I’m very fortunate to have her as a customer. It was a privilege.”
Courtesy Robin Manoogian
Longtimemakeup artist Robin Manoogianalso opened up to PEOPLE about working with the star from 1994-2004, remembering her as a “woman of few words,” who “would dance to her own tune.”
“There were many people that were up there at her level and you could sense the level of respect [they had] and I remember that Bill Clinton was a big fan and they would all just fawn over her and praise her,” says Manoogian. “As the English bow down to the queen, everyone in the music business virtually stopped and took a bow to her.”
“She commanded such respect and you could feel it in the air when other people came into her presence and she usually just sat very quiet and to herself,” she continues. “And the joy of just watching her sit at the piano, she was in her glory.”
Like most in Franklin’s orbit, Manoogian is thankful for everything Franklin gave her. “It exceeded my own career dreams,” she says. “I don’t know how I was lucky enough.”
For more on the life, legacy and loss of Aretha Franklin, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
source: people.com
