Cancer & Secret Surgeries: Inside Aretha Franklin’s Sad Last Days
Feb. 25 2019, Updated 11:49 a.m. ET
Music legend Aretha Franklin has died at 76 after bravely battling cancer, RadarOnline.com has learned. Click through RadarOnline.com’s gallery to find out more about the Queen of Soul's medical crises and sad last days.
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Franklin was originally diagnosed with pancreatic cancer back in 2010. Sadly, she relapsed in her cancer battle last year.
The celebrated singer, who has won 18 Grammys over the course of her prolific career, publicly performed at Philadelphia’s Mann Center in August 2017 despite battling exhaustion and dehydration, but her last performance was on November 2, 2017 for the Elton John AIDS Foundation in New York.
Franklin’s health recently took a turn for the worse, and she spent her final days in her Detroit home.
Tragically, Franklin’s sister-in-law, Cendia Franklin, recently admitted to RadarOnline.com the iconic singer is “very ill” and the situation is “not looking good.”
In 2011, Franklin danced around rumors about her health and denied she lost weight through gastric bypass surgery. Asked what kind of surgery she did have, the Freeway of Love singer said: “It’s really not necessary…to talk about one’s personal medical issues.”
However, conceded Franklin at the time, “the doctor did say to me, he said, ‘Mrs. Franklin, you are going to feel better than you have felt maybe in 10 or 15 years…and the surgery that you had is going to add 15 years to your life.’”
Franklin’s 2010 surgery reportedly was to remove half of her stomach, the head of her pancreas, and parts of her bile duct, gallbladder and duodenum.
Her weight became a real issue after her 2017 cancer relapse. “She was due to have radical chemotherapy treatments, and was told by doctors she needed to lose weight if she wanted to survive,” a source said of Franklin, who was estimated to have tipped the scales at around 300 pounds.
Despite her determination to turn her health around, Franklin declined in recent days.
“She’s very ill…She has been under the weather for months,” said Cendia, who is married to Franklin’s brother Vaughn. She added that “a lot of her family is around her, supporting her.”