While Aretha Franklin may be proudly showing off more of her "fullness", a natural woman she ain't. Seen here at the Kennedy Centre honors just days ago, the 65-year-old powerhouse is a heart attack just waiting to happen.Last week on NBC's Nightly News series on the state of African American women they focused on heart disease. My grandmother had it. My uncle has had two triple bypass surgeries. And we all know that the best way to not deal with this drama is diet and exercise -- something that many of us, including the 16-time Grammy Award winner, seems allergic to. Find out what she looked like back in the day AFTER THE JUMP...
Heart disease is a leading cause of death of African American women. To compound the problem, we are less likely to get preventative treatment than white women when diagnosed.
Shown above, Aretha is practically twice the size of the svelte sista in the Sixties and Seventies with the string of hits with songs such as Respect, Say a Little Prayer and You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman). Having spoken about her battle with her weight, Franklin said she spent decades starving herself to stay slim:"For a long time I suffered so much trying to be what other people expected me to be and look like," she told a US website. "I definitely was never meant to be a model type walking down a runway - I'm just Aretha singing what she feels in her heart and soul."