Aretha Franklin Is Not Dead Despite Twitter’s Confusion

Aretha Franklin is said to be “gravely ill” and her family has asked for privacy and prayers during this difficult time. According to the Daily Mail, the Queen of Soul is surrounded by her loved ones in Detroit. There have not been any details about Franklin’s health or what she might be suffering with. According to the report, Franklin is not dead, but she isn’t doing well at this time. According to CNN, Franklin is currently in hospice care.

Not long after the news broke, Aretha Franklin’s name started trending on Twitter. Many social media users saw her name and immediately thought that she had died. Several tweets reading “RIP Aretha Franklin” have been posted, leading many others to believe that Franklin had already passed away.

You can see some of the confusing tweets below.

Aretha Franklin has had some health issues over the years, but hasn’t been very forthcoming with information about what she has struggled with.

Back in 2010, Franklin was said to be very sick. At the time, it was rumored that she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but she denied those claims.

“There was just so many wild things out there and just so many things being said that weren’t true… I just felt I needed to address it a little. I don’t know where pancreatic cancer came from, she states. ‘I was sitting there reading the newspaper and it was saying someone in my family said that. No one in my family ever said that to anybody,” she said.

In May 2017, Franklin told concertgoers that she had been fighting an “upper respiratory viral infection.”

“I’ve been fighting an upper respiratory viral infection. So you’ll forgive me if I miss a few notes,” Franklin told the crowd at the world premiere of Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives.

That same month, the National Enquirer published a report that Franklin having lost more than 100 pounds because of a “cancer relapse.” Five months later, an Aretha Franklin death hoax hit the internet after a tweet from a fake account claimed that the Grammy winner had passed away.

The account, though believable at first glance, was fake. There were two “n’s” on the end of Franklin’s name in the Twitter handle. However, many people saw the tweet and immediately thought that Franklin had passed away. Hundreds of people tweeted “RIP Aretha Franklin,” sending the death hoax into high gear.

Franklin has been out of the public eye since last year. Her last performance took place on November 2, 2017, for the Elton John AIDS Foundation in New York.

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