Monday evening, as the country prepared for the Grammy broadcast, news broke that 80’s icon Denise Mathews has died.
Mathews, who was better known by fans as Vanity from 80s girl group Vanity 6, passed after years of batting kidney failure.
According to TMZ, she spent her last moments at a hospital in California on Monday.
“A few months ago she set up a GoFundMe page, and said she’d been diagnosed with sclerosis encapsulating peritonitis — an inflammation of the small intestines,” they report. “She also battled crack addiction in the 90s, and after a 1994 OD her kidneys were shot. She had to undergo nearly daily dialysis treatments.”
She eventually ditched Hollywood, quit drugs and became a born-again Christian in the mid ’90s. She remained active in her local church up until her death. We’re told she was in church on Saturday evening and told the congregation she was “ready to go home.”
Check out one of her most iconic videos below.
Her fans and colleagues have already begun sending their condolences on social media.
SADDEN my FRIEND IN CHRIST gone 2day. Vanity, Denise Matthews. MISS YOU DEARLY. U ARE IN HIS ARMS NOW, NO Pain pic.twitter.com/UbCWtl8brc
— SheilaEdrummer (@SheilaEdrummer) February 16, 2016
🙏🏿Today my friend & Sister Denise Katrina Matthews p/k/a #Vanity passed away. She absolutely loved GOD unto salvation. Rest in his Glory 🙏🏿
— MC HAMMER e/acc (@MCHammer) February 16, 2016