Pregnant at 12 and married to an abusive pimp by the age of 19, Aretha Franklin had a far from easy life before she was crowned the Queen of Soul. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, one of five children, her meteoric rise to fame is the subject of a major new film released in the UK next month – Respect, starring Jennifer Hudson.
Aretha’s early life was troubled right from the beginning. Her parents – the Rev. Clarence LaVaughn Franklin (known as CL and a serial adulterer) and Barbara Siggers (a gifted church pianist and gospel singer) – had a stormy relationship.
By the time Aretha was six, her mother had left the family home, taking her eldest child, a son from a previous relationship, and leaving Aretha and her remaining siblings with their volatile father.
A close friend of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr, CL drove a Cadillac and wore sharp suits with alligator-skin shoes. In 1946, he became the pastor of the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, where a precociously talented Aretha would perform for the congregation.
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Denne historien er fra August 16,2021-utgaven av OK! UK.
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