“You may not know me personally but you’re all my friends,” she tells us. “He’s amazing, sometimes it takes a lifetime to find your true love.”īetween them the couple have 27 grandchildren and great-grandchildren to keep them busy.Few performers have such a warm rapport with their audience. He comes on tour too.”ĭoes she wish she had met him years earlier? Laughing heartily she says: “I wish I could have, I wish I should have, all those things. He loves music and sometimes does it better than I do. He does the business side and I do the creative. He’s brought me such a, it sounds like a song but, a mighty long way. “A lot of people can’t work with their other half, you’ve got to have that respect and lift each other up. When I first saw him I said, ‘Ooh, he’s really cute’! He’s my manager. She has also sung on a single he released and they are helping build a community centre through their charity. Since 2001, though, Gladys has been happily married to “the love of my life” William McDowell, who is 14 years her junior and helps manage her career. Another son, Shanga, who she had with second husband Barry Hankerson, was sentenced to two years in prison in 2021 over a $1million tax scam at four restaurants he set up bearing his mum’s name, Gladys Knight’s Chicken and Waffles. She has also experienced family tragedy – her son Jimmy, who managed her career, died from heart failure in 1999 aged just 36. She has had four marriages, the first when she was just 16 to Atlanta musician James Newman, who later became a drug addict and abandoned her and their two kids. While Gladys is in love with love, her personal life has been far from a bed of roses. “If someone wants to come on stage and sing with me, that’s fine with me.” I love the way you can just relax and do your thing. If I run across any of my friends there we have a good time. “I always make the most of my time in the UK. ![]() For real! When they went out people were asking us, ‘Where did you get those pants?’ I’d say, ‘You’ll have to go to England and check it out!’ In fact, I used to come over and get my kids their school clothes. “Oh, I have a great time when I come to the UK,” she says. I ask Gladys what she loves about her periodic trips across the Atlantic. This year’s tour, which begins in Manchester and ends with two nights at the Royal Albert Hall, is her first visit since before the pandemic. Then she delighted them by changing her mind and doing further shows here from 2015. ![]() But in 2009 she disappointed British fans by announcing her farewell tour of the UK. Her success continued after she went solo in 1989. Gladys then received a Golden Globe nomination for her first acting role in the romantic film Pipe Dreams. The move paid off, as the rebranded Gladys Knight and The Pips reeled off the hits including If I Were Your Woman and the Grammy winning Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be the First to Say Goodbye).Įven greater success came after they left the label, with hits including Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me, which reached No7 in the UK. The catch was they had to get to Detroit – so the siblings pawned everything they owned, including Bubba’s guitar, to buy four bus tickets. The original line-up included her brother Bubba, sister Brenda and their cousins Eleanor and William Guest.Īfter winning every talent show they entered in their home city, the group had several Top 40 hits before moving to New York. “Both of them tried to keep us on the straight and narrow.”īorn in Atlanta, Gladys began singing in the church choir, before winning a TV talent contest aged eight in 1952. “I love his mom, she reminds me of my mom and they were good friends too. “You’ve got to take that time away, and one day love will fall into your lap. “He said, ‘Gladys, how do you make a family?’ I said, Michael, you’ll be able to have one, it’s got to be in your spirit, you’ve got to calm yourself down. And then he asked me something and it almost made me cry. “I remember one day he came over to my house, because he was friends with my kids, and we were having fun.
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