Denise Matthews, the singer who fronted the R&B female vocal trio Vanity 6 as Vanity and was best known for her collaboration with Prince, passed away at the age of 57. According to NME, the Canadian-born singer died from kidney failure at a hospital in Fremont, California.
Matthews launched her career as a model and actress, tackling film roles with sensuous characters since 1980. After highlighted in the movies “52 Pick-Up” and “Action Jackson”, she headlined in a funk group assembled by Prince. The legendary singer-songwriter wrote and produced Vanity 6’s 1982 hit ‘Nasty Girl’, a song that topped the Billboard dance charts.
After being mentored by Prince in her early career with the ’80’s girl group, Matthews released two solo albums with Motown: 1984’s Wild Animal and 1986’s Skin On Skin. Yet in 1992, Matthews was hospitalized for kidney failure, which she blamed on cocaine and other drug use. In a 1999 Associated Press story, she said, “I was sick inside. I was a crack cocaine addict and didn’t even know how to wake up in the morning without some smoke.”
In the mid 1990s, the alluring persona who rocketed to stardom as Prince’s protege renounced her Hollywood lifestyle. Matthews retired from her career in the entertainment industry and dedicated herself to her newfound Christian faith. She later reminisced her former livelihood and its misery with “disdain”.
Matthews focused on sharing her transformation and powerful testimony as a passionate evangelist. She never expressed regret for abandoning her celebrity way of life. In 1999, she said:
When I was Vanity, it was all about me. But when I’m preaching the word of God, it’s Jesus Christ speaking through me. I don’t want people to know who I was back then, but the new creature that God has made me.
Matthews’ sister Renay revealed that Denise died as a result of complications over longstanding kidney issues. “She loved her time in the ’80s,” Renay Matthews stated, “but I think she loved her recent time more, because she had been at peace.”
Sheile E, another former Prince protege who became a professing Christian, expressed a goodbye to the late star in a tweet: “SADDEN my FRIEND IN CHRIST gone 2day. Vanity, Denise Matthews. MISS YOU DEARLY. U ARE IN HIS ARMS NOW, NO Pain.”
Solange and MC Hammer also paid tribute to Denise “Vanity” Matthews.
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