Gladys Knight’s family and inner circle don’t see eye to eye on her condition

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — No performer, even one of the greatest voices in American music, can be expected to be at the top of their game in their 80s, but there was something about the way Gladys Knight appeared disoriented at one of her summer concerts that sounded alarm bells that have kept ringing.

In videos captured and shared on social media from the August gig, the “Midnight Train to Georgia” singer wandered around on stage as the music to her hit played in the background and her backup singers performed the main vocals. At one point, she stood with her back to the audience. As social media was flooded with messages of concern, a statement appeared on the Grammy winner’s social media accounts, stating she would “be easing into fewer performances while focusing on transitioning into the next stage of my career and life moving forward.”

Her son, Shanga Hankerson, didn’t believe the statement, nor did he believe his mother wrote it herself.

“That was a lie,” Hankerson, who has not seen his mother in person in more than a year, said. “It was something to keep the train moving. It wasn’t real.”

Knight has taken the stage seven times since the release of her statement, most recently on October 10 in Atlantic City for a set that included some of her biggest hits. She has two additional dates booked through November, according to her website.

Knight is one of several aging music legends who have recently been the center of concerned conversation after on-stage appearances.

What the public has debated online about Knight is, at its heart, what appears to be a private family struggle, one that began long before the video went viral. Interviews with relatives and employees reveal two competing portraits of the 82-year-old’s condition, with some worried about her cognitive health. Knight has not publicly disclosed that she has been diagnosed with any medical conditions.

In one, she is a woman in decline who is being kept on the road, according to her family members. In the other, she is exactly where she wants to be: In the spotlight, doing the only thing she has ever wanted to do.

Both Knight and her husband/manager William McDowell were contacted by CNN for comment.

Initially, Laura Herlovich, Knight’s publicist, referred to the singer’s statement posted on social media as a response to this story. When told it contained discussion and reporting about Knight’s cognitive health, including that her sister, Brenda Knight Clark, said the star is receiving medication often given to those with dementia, Herlovich said via email, “Gladys would feel betrayed by her family discussing her personal life with the media.”

“She nor her team will have any further comment,” she added.

A lifetime on stage

Gladys Maria Knight has spent her life on stage, having first sang in public as a four-year-old at Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Atlanta. By the 1960s she was a Motown recording artist, fronting Gladys Knight and the Pips alongside her brother, Merald “Bubba” Knight Jr.

Her body of work is more vast and expansive than can properly be described to a generation used to siloed and streamed musical experiences.

Her son, Hankerson, says the woman the world has known and that he knows has been slipping away.

He says his mother has had memory problems for some time, struggles to form full sentences and last year did not seem to recognize him.

“It’s been a long period of time that there’s been a decline,” he said. “She’s basically been sequestered from all of her family for the most part. It’s hard to deal with.”

He tells CNN he hasn’t seen her in person since New Year’s Day 2025, when he brought his children to visit her at her home in Asheville, North Carolina. He blames McDowell for keeping her on the road and feels his mother has been “manipulated” into wanting to continue performing on stage.

“I know that she enjoys performing and making people happy, but I also know that she enjoys her free time and being able to do things with family and things like that,” he said. “One of our things was cooking, and with the condition that she’s in mentally, she can’t even cook anymore.”

Hankerson says he knows some will question his motives.

In 2021, he was sentenced to two years in prison, followed by a year of supervised release, and ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution for willfully failing to remit payroll taxes tied to Gladys Knight’s Chicken and Waffles restaurant in Atlanta.

“It’s not about money for me,” said Hankerson, who has expressed that his contentious relationship with McDowell has made it difficult to spend time with Knight. “It is about money from the standpoint of resources to make sure that she is taken care of with the money that she earned.”

Knight’s older sister Clark shares his fear.

She said McDowell sent the singer, accompanied by an assistant, to visit her in Las Vegas a few months ago and “she wasn’t in good shape.”

According to Clark, she was instructed by the assistant that she was to give her sister two pills at bedtime. When she looked them up, she told CNN, one was Memantine, which manages symptoms of moderate to severe dementia in people with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the FDA.

“It has gotten progressively worse,” she said.

Based on the incident with the medication and what she has seen, Clark said she is certain of what her sister is dealing with.

“She has dementia,” Clark said. “I don’t care what anybody says. I’ve witnessed it.”

Neither Knight or her husband has shared such a medical diagnosis publicly.

In August, McDowell told TMZ “No one is ever gonna make me say, ‘My wife is well,’ but all she wants to do is sing” and reiterated that his wife had not been diagnosed with dementia, though he added that she would soon be seeing a doctor to get evaluated.

It’s unclear if that evaluation has taken place. Multiple attempts to reach McDowell for comment were unsuccessful.

‘Singing is all she has left’

Others close to Knight describe a different scene than an ailing star.

Charles Barnwell, her driver of roughly 15 years, doesn’t deny the memory problems. But he insists that no one is forcing her onto the stage.

“What’s amazing to me is she can still get on that stage and sing. Now she’ll lose her place here from time to time, but I see a lot of artists do that,” he said. “She’s always told me that as long as she has her voice, she wants to sing. She can’t imagine doing anything else.”

He said “Ms. G,” as he affectionately calls her, doesn’t need the money. She tours because she loves it, and her voice is a “gift from God” that has “moved people around the world.”

Barnwell, who is her current driver, says her team understands what she is facing because so many of them have faced it at home.

“We all got family members that have gone through this and you can’t hide it,” Barnwell said. “My point is singing is all she has left now.”

Those who have seen her recently describe a performer in command.

Photographer Andrew Agresta Jr., who shot her August show in Huntsville, Alabama, described her as an engaged performer whose voice was “really strong.”

Dave Zane, a guitarist with The Buckinghams for 16 years who watched her perform last month in Shipshewana, Indiana, said the show was “excellent” and said Knight was radiant with joy.

He has shared stages with many artists in their eighties and understands why they keep going.

“Media can be real cruel sometimes, but when somebody has done this their whole life, for people to say they should just step away, music is their whole life, you know,” he said.

Yuko Tamura, Knight’s keyboardist since 2006, agrees.

“This is her life. This is her happiness,” Tamura said, adding that the band has come to be like Knight’s family. “This gives her energy and it’s more like a therapy, too.”

Concern for musical icons

Knight is one of several iconic performers whose recent tours had to be cut short.

Lionel Richie, 77, and Rod Stewart, 81, have been open about their medical challenges.

Richie had to cancel some concerts this summer after falling ill and later announced that he would be taking a break following a procedure he had for a heart issue known as atrial fibrillation, or A-fib. A representative told the AP he hoped to be “back on stage soon.”

Stewart almost passed out during a June concert in West Valley City, Utah and took some weeks off from touring to recuperate, after a heart stent procedure, according to a statement from his representative. He has announced plans to tour again in 2027.

This month, the Beach Boys’ Mike Love, 85, sparked concern after being described as looking “alarmingly frail” as he sat on stage at a recent Beach Boys concert.

In an email statement to the New York Times, which did not directly address his health challenges, Love said he’s “putting my full energy into rehab so I can get back to the music and the best fans in the world.”

Love’s representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

Longtime music critic J. D. Considine, who has written for publications like Rolling Stone, the New York Times and the Washington Post, said that professional artists “keep performing because that’s what you’ve always done and that’s what makes you feel who you are.”

For those like Knight who have been doing it for so long, it can also be difficult to let go of the sheer energy of performing, according to Molly Mary O’Brien, a music writer who also runs the site I Enjoy Music.

“If you have been performing music and playing music for your entire life at an extremely high level, I can see it being something where this is what you know and to stop doing that would feel wrong in your life,” O’Brien said. “I do think there might be some kind of animating force to the concept of getting up and playing shows and either touring or doing residencies that gives them life.”

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