Music legend Aretha Franklin is “gravely ill,” her family told WDIV-TV (Channel 4) on Monday.
Channel 4 anchor Evrod Cassimy said this morning in a tweet: “I spoke with her family members this morning. She is asking for your prayers at this time.”
In March, Franklin canceled two concerts scheduled in New Jersey.
Franklin’s most recent performance was Nov. 2, 2017 at the Elton John AIDS Foundation in New York and her final public performance was at Philadelphia’s Mann Center in August 2017.
Franklin, 76, last performed in Detroit in June 2017. It was an emotion-packed concert for thousands at an outdoor festival downtown. She ended the performance with a then-cryptic appeal to the hometown crowd: “Please keep me in your prayers.”
Franklin had announced plans to retire earlier in 2017, saying she would perform at “some select things.”
A biopic starring Jennifer Hudson as Franklin is scheduled to begin filming in 2019.
Born in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 25, 1942, Franklin moved to Detroit at age 4. She remained loyal to the region, living in the Detroit area for decades, including the Bloomfield Hills house where she moved in the late 1980s.
“My roots are there. The church is there. My family is there,” she told the Free Press in 2011. “I like the camaraderie in Detroit, how we’ll rally behind something that’s really worthy and come to each other’s assistance.”
