Gladys Knight has revealed she is suffering from ‘the same disease’ as the late Aretha Franklin.
The singer said that she and the Queen of Soul ended up bonding the last time she spoke to her.
‘We shared the fact that we had the same disease,’ Knight told WDIV while attending the memorial service.
Franklin died of pancreatic cancer on August 16
‘We shared the fact that we had the same disease,’ Knight told WDIV while attending the memorial service
‘We lost our Queen. She’s my sister and we are family,’ Knight said. ‘I didn’t want her to suffer. It’s not our business, its the Lord’s business. I am just glad to be here to honor her.
‘We had some good times. We grew up together. Our families were similar so we had things in common. We liked to eat and cook,’ Knight said as she walked into the service.
Knight ended up speaking about Franklin’s illness with Us Weekly earlier this week.
‘We all have our days,’ the 74-year-old said. ‘I mean, we have absolutely no control over that. The Lord tells us where we are going and tells us when we are coming.
Knight is a seven-time Grammy Award winner with her act Gladys Knight & the Pips, left, but she had a close friendship with Aretha Franklin, right, and kept in touch with one another
‘So I’m not overly upset about it, and he knows how much each one of us can bear, and he calls us home with those things in mind. That’s the way I feel about it, because he loves us like that.’
Her publicist clarified on Friday afternoon that Knight does not have pancreatic cancer. “I’m not sure what she meant. Maybe she meant she feels her pain. But she does not have cancer,” Knight’s rep Javier Delgado told the Detroit News.
“She’s healthy. Someone must have misinterpreted,” said Delgado.
Aretha Franklin was carried down a red carpet into Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple on Friday morning in a gold plated casket, wearing a gold, full length dress for her star-studded funeral.
Dignitaries and celebrities alike filled the temple. Among the high profile guests were Whoopi Goldberg, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Ariana Grande, T.D. Jakes, Jennifer Holliday, boxer Tommy Hearns, Motown star Martha Reeves, Jesse Jackson Rep. Maxine Waters and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan were all spotted.
State troopers came to pay their respects to Franklin’s open casket in full uniform before her family entered to say their final goodbyes.