Glynn Turman may have seen his marriage to Aretha Franklin fall apart, but the two reunited while the legendary singer was on her deathbed in a meeting that Turman said was “full of closure.”
Franklin passed away on Thursday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Reports indicated that Franklin was surrounded by friends and family when she died, and now a report from People magazine noted that her ex-husband was among those to pay a visit in her final days.
The report noted that the 71-year-old actor was able to hold Franklin’s arm as he kept her company, though at that point she was not able to communicate.
“I was able to feel her pulse, which was strong. So she was fighting ’til the very end,” Turman said. “She’s always been a warrior — a strong, strong woman and a fighter. Her pulse told me that she was not in surrender mode. She was going to fight it ’til the end.”
The report noted that Franklin was conscious but unable to speak with her ex-husband, who paid her a visit along with singer Stevie Wonder. Turman said that Aretha could still feel his presence and the two shared a final moment together.
“We were able to feed off of that recognition, feed off of the moment of both sort of realizing that time was extremely precious at this time,” he said. “So it was a moment full of closure.”
The couple had a bit of a rocky time together, divorcing in 1984 after six years of marriage (the two did not have any children together, though Franklin was a mother to four sons). As Newsweek noted, Turman was already a well-known actor at the time they met, making his name in the 1959 Broadway play A Raisin in the Sun . He met Aretha at a benefit for needy children in Los Angeles in 1977, and they were married by the next year.
Their wedding was a landmark occasion, with the Motown group The Four Tops performing and the wedding itself getting a television broadcast. The two remained close after their 1984 divorce, Turman shared, and said that the two were able to share some good memories together.
Aretha Franklin’s second husband, Glynn Turman, reflects on her life and “tremendous sense of humor.” https://t.co/RegTDWl8IR
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 16, 2018
“The good times were wonderful. The things we were able to share, things we were able to do together, the concerts that we were able to share,” he said.
Glynn Turman was among a number of family and friends who were able to visit Aretha Franklin in her final days.
