On Thursday, friends, and family of the Queen of Soul, #ArethaFranklin, gathered in Detroit to celebrate the life and legacy of the legendary songstress.
Ahead of the memorial, a friend of the soul music icon, #GladysKnight, revealed that she too suffered from the same sickness as her late friend.
“The last time I talked to her, we were at the same hotel, and we didn’t know it,” Knight reportedly told Channel 4. “But I know her crew and family, she knows my crew and family.”
“Aretha said, ‘Get down here,’ so I went down…We just got to talking, and at that time we shared the fact that we had the same disease.”
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However, shortly after Knight’s statement, her publicist, Javier Delgado, made clear that Knight did not have pancreatic cancer. In fact, he said he wasn’t exactly sure what Knight meant in saying the two “had the same disease.”
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“I’m not sure,” Delgado said. “Maybe she meant she feels her pain. But she does not have cancer.”
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“She’s healthy,” he said. “Someone must have misinterpreted.”
Since then, Knight has clarified further, saying, “I’d like to clarify that Aretha and I discussed both of us having cancer, mine was stage 1 breast cancer and hers was pancreatic. Due to early detection, I am cancer free and grateful for that.”
She said, “It is unfortunate that on a day we should be celebrating Aretha’s life and massive contribution to our world, a reporter who did not relay accurate information has missed the message. I send my love to the entire Franklin family and my gratitude to them for sharing such an extraordinary person with us.”
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