‘Pretty Little Baby’ Singer Connie Francis Dead at 87 Following Hospitalization

Connie Francis has died two weeks after being hospitalized for “extreme pain.” The iconic 1950s and ’60s pop singer was 87.

The news of Francis’ death broke early Thursday via an update from her close friend and record label’s president, Ron Roberts.

“It is with a heavy heart and extreme sadness that I inform you of the passing of my dear friend Connie Francis last night,” Roberts wrote on Facebook in a message that was shared on Francis’ official page. “I know that Connie would approve that her fans are among the first to learn of this sad news. More details will follow later.”

News broke on July 2 that the “Pretty Little Baby” singer had been hospitalized, with Francis sharing on Facebook at the time that she had been “undergoing tests and checks to determine the cause(s) of the extreme pain I have been experiencing.”

Francis also revealed she had been “receiving treatment on [her] hip” a few weeks prior, which prompted her to withdraw from a radio appearance. “My thanks for your many get well soon messages,” she continued. “I will endeavor to keep you updated.”

Later that same day, Francis wrote in an update, “I am pleased to advise that following a series of tests and examinations in Intensive Care, I have now been transferred to a private room. Thank you all for your kind thoughts, words and prayers. They mean so much! Love, Connie.”

Francis is best known for her hit songs “Stupid Cupid,” “Lipstick on Your Collar,” “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool,” and “Who’s Sorry Now,” as well as 1962’s “Pretty Little Baby,” which recently went viral on TikTok.

Having been born Concetta Franconero in New Jersey in 1937, Francis began performing in talent competitions and pageants when she was just 4 years old. She eventually became a featured performer on NBC’s Startime Kids, where she was billed as Connie Francis.

After signing a record deal with MGM in 1955, Francis’ music career struggled to take off until her 1957 recording of “Who’s Sorry Now?” debuted on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand a year later and became an international hit.

Francis’ career was on the up from there, and she became the first solo female artist to have a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with her 1960 song “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool.”

As her career began to wane in the late ’60s, Francis found herself in a dark place after being raped in 1974, temporarily struggling with her voice due to surgery in 1977, and losing her brother to a mafia hit in 1981. She began to have difficulties with her mental health and was hospitalized numerous times.

“To make a short story long, in the ’80s, I was involuntarily committed to mental institutions 17 times in nine years in five different states,” she told the Village Voice in 2011. “I was misdiagnosed as bipolar, ADD, ADHD, and a few other letters the scientific community had never heard of. A few years later, I was discovered to have had post-traumatic stress disorder following a horrendous string of events in my life.”

Francis would continue to advocate for victims of rape as part of a task force on violent crime within President Ronald Reagan’s administration, and in 2010, partnered with Mental Health America to raise awareness about the impacts of trauma and treatments for it.

In 2017, Francis told PEOPLE that she wanted to be remembered “not so much for the heights I have reached, but for the depths from which I have come.”