Etta James Has Leukemia

Just when I put a candle snuffer/shot glass over the flame on my Saint Bea candle which burned clouds of good thoughts for Aretha Franklin’s health, I read that 72-year-old Etta James is in a bad, bad way. You can always count on a good old-fashioned family bitch fight to pull the curtain on somebody’s private situation. The Press-Enterprise (via USA Today) reports that Etta’s husband of 41 years Artis Mills and her son Donto James are fighting over who should control the $1 million that’s used to pay for her care.

Court papers show that Etta is undergoing treatment for leukemia and suffers from dementia. Dr. Elaine James (zero relation) declared in documents that Etta can’t sign her own name and needs 24-hour care at her home in Riverside, CA. Donto wants the court to assign control of his mother’s money to a third-party “to avoid present and future family conflict and discrepancies.”

We wouldn’t have even known about Etta’s health if her husband and son didn’t take their fight to the courts! Christ on a hot wig! Can’t they solve their differences with a backyard brawl like normal people do? (You can’t do it inside, because you might knock over “The Last Supper” ceramic floor vase your abuelita spent 20-minutes haggling for at the Tijuana border.) Some of my best family fights have been resolved with a spray of a garden hose.

And now I must relight my Saint Bea candle and play “At Last” (NOT the Beyonce version) on a loop.