If you were to draw up a list of legendary female artists that have defined worldwide music today, Aretha Louise Franklin would assuredly be on the list. She is a mentor and an inspiration to countless numbers of singers from all genres. Aretha at 74 is a multiple award winner, one of the best-selling female artists of all time and seats majestically on several highly acclaimed Halls of Fame in music.
Date of Birth: March 25, 1942
Date of Death: August 16, 2018 (age 76)
Zodiac sign: Aries
The You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman singer indeed has some people in her life that make her feel that way. These people have the key to her heart, well some of them did. We’ll be looking today into her marriages and the children she has.
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Aretha Franklin husband
Ted White (ex-husband)
Duration of Marriage: 1961-1969 (8 years together)
The “powerful mezzo-soprano voiced” singer met Ted in her hasty bid to become successful. Ted White who also became her manager then was the slickest pimp in Detroit and was known for being notorious. He introduced our beloved Aretha Louise Franklin into weed and alcohol and left her worse than she met him. Her relationship with Ted even went on to have quite a negative effect on her music career.
Apparently, soul’s biggest star thought they were in love because they got married in no time but she just kept getting wild by the day. Aretha Louise chose to stay even though she was not happy because she wanted the world to think it was a storybook marriage.
Eight years into their marriage when she could not bear it anymore and the money was not enough to make her stay, Franklin ran back to Daddy. Ted White was domestically violent! Before this divorce, she already had a baby boy for Ted.
Glynn Russell Turman (ex-husband)
Date of Birth: January 31, 1947
Zodiac Sign: Aquarius
Duration of Marriage: April 11, 1978 – February 7, 1984 (6 years together)
Actor Glynn Turman was married and had three kids from his six years marriage to Ula M. Walker before he married Franklin in 1978. They met early 1977 at a charity event for underprivileged kids in Los Angeles and sealed the relationship barely a year after meeting. The wedding was conducted by Franklin’s dad at his “sex circus” church.
One thing that endeared Franklin to Turman was how much of a gentleman he was. You can imagine how desperately she needed to see the good side of love after such horrible experience with pimp Ted White. Aretha said he was polite to her, intelligent, articulate and had a certain kind of warmth around him that she really liked.
Who knew what went wrong? No one I guess because their “sweet union” quickly turned sour.
Aretha Franklin children
Clarence Franklin, Jr. (son, born to Aretha Franklin and Donald Burk)
Date of Birth: March 28, 1956
Zodiac Sign: Aries
Clarence (named after her “preacher” dad) is the first son of the soul music legend Aretha. He was born when she was just twelve to a father that was not identified for a long time. There seems to be some rumours however that Franklin might have been impregnated by her own father since we think she was sexually awakened at a young age due to her father’s “church parties”. In the end, it turned out that her highly perverted father was innocent and Clarence’s dad was Donald Burk, some guy Aretha knew from school at the time.
Edward Franklin (son, born to Aretha Franklin and Edward Jordan)
Date of Birth: January 5, 1957
Zodiac Sign: Capricorn
Edward was born next after Clarence and was raised by Rachel and Emma, Aretha’s grandmum and sister respectively. He was born while the soul music royalty was 15.
Ted White Jr. (son, born to Aretha Franklin and Ted White)
Year of Birth: 1964
Ted is known by his professional name Teddy Richards. He is a guitar player and has several times been responsible for his mother guitar backups at some of her live concerts.
He is in the process of trying to break out from his mum’s shadow. You know how it can be with celebrity parents; the world has high expectations especially when you choose their line of career. Teddy Richards is also a singer and songwriter.
Kecalf Franklin Cunningham (son, born to Aretha Franklin and Ken Cunningham)
Date of Birth: March 28, 1970
Zodiac Sign: Aries
The iconic singer of the hit song “Respect” was said to be a sex, food and alcohol addict. Maybe sex was just a way to handle her many stress and insecurity issues. True that she married twice but she had quite a number of lovers.
One of these periods in the seventies when she was going on and on binge drinking, her road manager Ken Cunningham became her solace. Aretha was pregnant again but this time with her last child.
The poorly-talented Christian rap artist Kecalf is now father to a beautiful daughter named Victorie making “Miss RESPECT” a grandma. Victorie is a child-singer and performed once at a BET Honours ceremony. Many times after his performance, is audience is left unhappy because sadly, Kecalf is not half as talented as Aretha Franklin. He is sometimes called the “Shaq Fu of Christian Hip-hop”.
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