American gospel musician, Aretha Franklin is dead. She died at 76, according to a family statement released on Thursday.
Franklin died at 9:50 a.m. at her home in Detroit, surrounded by family and friends, according to a statement from her longtime publicist Gwendolyn Quinn, on behalf of Franklin’s family.
The “official cause of death was due to advanced pancreatic cancer of the neuroendocrine type, which was confirmed by Franklin’s oncologist, Dr. Philip Phillips of Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit,” the family statement said.
Aretha Franklin was a music icon, legendary singer and “Queen of Soul” loved by millions whose history-making career spanned six decades.
Tributes and tears flooded in Thursday after news of her death broke.
Aretha helped define the American experience. In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade—our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect. May the Queen of Soul rest in eternal peace. pic.twitter.com/bfASqKlLc5
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 16, 2018
Live shot from the Hollywood Walk of Fame. RIP Aretha! Thank you for your music! #queenofsoul pic.twitter.com/ZW8e2S2wvk
— Peggy DeOrio (@psdeorio) August 16, 2018
