The Queen of Soul died Aug 16 2018, exactly 41 years to the day we lost the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. Franklin got her start at the age 12 in her father’s church, she was a soloist with his traveling ministry. Born in Memphis, raised in Detroit, she was a mother to two sons by the age of 14.
Until her last day she remained a fiercely private person, unshakable in her faith. She won 18 Grammies and was the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Her hits like Respect and Natural Woman made her the “Queen”. Behind all of this was a person hiding insecurities as told in the book RESPECTco-authored by David Ritz. A look at her birth order will give us the answers.
Aretha Louise Franklin
Aretha’s Double Birth Order
To find her birth order we must look at all her siblings that lived with her while she was growing up.
- LaVaughn Cavanaugh Franklin 12-24-1935
- 1/Only (half-brother by her mother) 4 year Gap
- Emma Varnice Franklin Garrett 3-13-1938
- 2/1 Cecil L. Franklin 3-31-1940
- 3/2 Aretha Louise Franklin 3-25-1942
- 4/3 Carolyn Ann Franklin 5-? -1944 5/4
All the Franklin children have Double Birth orders. This makes for a very interesting family group. Those with Double birth orders will show characteristics of both of their birth orders at random times. This would have been an interesting household to say the least. Aretha had a 4/3 Double birth order. We can now unmask her personality as we look at each of these birth orders.
The Three Birth Order
The third born is the child that has a keen sense of all the people around them. Religion in all its forms are a magnet for this person. They are creative and intuitive, The Three has a world view and the need to reach all people. She reached a wider audience while preforming for American Presidents and Pope Francis.
Creative and artistic, Aretha was a self-taught pianist and her voice was truly a gift. By age seven she could play a song perfectly on the piano, after hearing it once. Three’s are sensitive to others and are easily hurt but try not to show it. Laughing on the outside but crying on the inside is a way to hide their pain.
Aretha put the best possible light on her failed marriages and her life. Her singing touched millions and she gave each song a deeper meaning with her touch of soul. This birth order is open to all the possibilities of life and her addictions to sex, alcohol, drugs and food some of which were obvious.
Aretha certainly had a food addiction and was a compulsive eater. Seen in her photos, her weight fluctuated throughout her life. Her husband Ted White, also her manager introduced her to reefers and wine. She quit smoking in 1992 but her younger sister Carolyn Franklin said, “She felt she was not good enough as a singer, pretty enough as a woman, and not devoted enough as a mother”.
She could not maintain a relationship with another woman, always seeing them as competition. Her compulsive spending left her with a lot of unpaid bills. The largest debt was to Saks Fifth Avenue for $262,000 dollars.
The Fourth Birth Order
The Fourth born is the true baby in the family. This is true even if there are younger siblings. Each birth order has its own strategy and the strategy of the first child begins again with child number five. The baby in the family can be loud to call attention to themselves and will act impulsively to a perceived personal attack.
She once threw a tantrum when Beyoncé described Tina Turner as “The Queen”. Throughout her life she tortured her sisters, brother, and producers and managers showing both rage and jealousies. Educated by older siblings the Fourth born can be forgetful and outspoken, even as children they are not intimidated by adults.
Aretha was the only child in her family not graduate high-school. She dropped out of school in her sophomore year. The Fourth born wants to be taken care of and can be the comedian in the family. Her father was her “rock” when things went bad with her marriages, she always returned home to him.
To the public she wanted to present an image of an ideal marriage but too ended. After she got control of her drinking she still didn’t show up for concert dates and had to pay the venues for her no shows. This problem and the costs of taking care of her father who was in a coma for six years after being shot by an intruder, made keeping money a constant problem.
After he died and her marriages all failed she keep firing almost everyone who worked for her. In her mind she lived a fantasy life. In the end she died without a will. She never got back to her attorney, the number four leaves the details to others.
Cancer 2010
True to her belief in faith, she told the Associated Press in 2013 that she had received a “absolutely miraculous” healing after she was diagnosed with an illness. While talking to her old friend Smokey Robinson she said that doctors are not very well acquainted with faith healing.
In 2017 talking with the Chicago Sun-Times she said, “Faith is very important, it certainly has sustained me to this day.” It was pancreatic cancer that led to her death. Her privacy about her illness is all in keeping with her number Three birth order, again laughing on the outside, crying on the inside.
The Combined 4/3 Birth Order
Seeing Aretha through the characteristics of her two birth orders gives us a truer understanding of her motivation and how she dealt with her insecurities. If nothing else, her talent and life gave her R-E-S-P-E-C-T.