Aretha Franklin had 2 children by age 14. Also messed around with Sam Cooke when she was 12.

Never watched Respect, I heard it wasn’t good.

Didn’t know Sam Cooke went to the Bryan Singer school of mason’ around. He would have been 23 when she was 12 if he did molest her.

It's shame she chain smoked for 30 years before giving it up. If she didn't smoke it's likely she wouldn't have gotten pancreatic cancer and might still be alive today.

The rumor was that she was impregnated the first time around by her own daddy

It wasn't pancreatic cancer that carried Re off in her boojie box.

Just saying. Mmm-hmm.

Messed around? She was 12. He was a grown man.

No, R7, it was reprehensible no matter when it happened. Aretha had a crush on Sam Cooke but he did not have sex with her when she was a little kid. Didn't happen. Her father was responsible in that he used her to attract crowds as he ran around the to those revivals and preaught her so she'd sing. He was responsible because he was a licentious man a degenerate, promiscuous pig who drank and cavorted with women, and left Aretha to run wild. She was molested no doubt, by some sick pedo pig at one of the revival meetings. She was c ompletely unsupervised and when she did accompany her father to the house parties seeing him drinking and pawing women and everyone laughing, drinking, having a good time, she was fascinated by all that. Thought it was fine. The women he consorted with didn't do too much to try to offer guidance.

In her memoir Aretha said she went back to Sam’s hotel room and said their conversation took another turn but then they were interrupted by her father. I don’t know if they went all the way, she was pretty vague.

And she didn't even let her first daughter know that Berry Gordy was the kid's real father, until many years later--shameful!

R11,Diana Ross likes to tell it that way, but the truth is that Barry suspected that was his kid and did nothing about it. He was shit.

Sadly, Aretha was sexualized as a child. Her father was a licentious man who hosted orgies at his home AND had Aretha singing to provide entertainment for the revelers. She was likely the victim of sexual molestation as a child but probably did not regard it that way when it happened. She bore two children by 14 but other than the shame associated with being the unwed teenage mother of bastard children she likely didn't suffer the trauma of having been sexually assaulted. She probably only understood the inappropriateness of what was done to her much later, in her adult years.

Sam Cooke had women throwing themselves at him from every direction. It is disappointing to hear that he may have had sex with underage girls. In the Black gospel circuit at the time, the rumor was that Sam Cooke impregnated Aretha but Aretha's father -- a powerful, influential man -- agreed not to made it public in exchange for a stake in Cooke's career.

Respect didn't address this head-on. There was one scene where a shadowy man came into her room while she was sleeping, and then cut to her leaving two kids with her grandma when she left to perform.

For the youth who may not know, the classic song Respect was written by Otis Redding.

Aretha’s father:

As noted by his biographer, Nick Salvatore, Reverend CL Franklin fathered a daughter, Carol Ellan Kelley (née Jennings) (1940–2019), by Mildred Jennings, a 12-year-old member of his congregation. Carol Ellan was born November 17, 1940, during his tenure at New Salem Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee

So, Aretha’s father impregnated a 12 year old member of his congregation.

Aretha had her first child at age 12.

Nobody knows, definitively, who the father of Aretha’s first 2 children are.

Forgot link to CL Lewis Wikipedia

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