Connie Francis, the singer of the popular TikTok song “Pretty Little Baby,” passes away at age 87

Family members were “expecting” Connie Francis to pass away.

Ron Roberts, her friend and the head of her label Concetta Records, has revealed that his friend’s health has been deteriorating for the past several weeks. The legendary artist passed suddenly on Wednesday night at the age of 87, just weeks after she informed fans that she had been hospitalized due to “extreme pain.”

“Unfortunately, they were unable to pinpoint the precise location of the pain, but we were expecting it,” Ron told People magazine.

For a while, Connie had assumed it was simply hip issues “that she’d been having.”

The performer of “Who’s Sorry Now?” had remained upbeat all the way through.

Ron praised Connie as a “fighter,” saying, “It’s been two months of the most extreme high and the most extreme low.”

The singer was permitted to leave the hospital a few days before to her death, but she started to “deteriorate” and spent at least the last two days of her life unconscious.

Ron remarked: “She quietly slipped away.”

He continued, “She was clearly in pain and very weak,” referring to their last conversation. By then, she had been in the hospital for a full week. She felt worn out. The results of [all the tests] are crippling.

The popularity of her 1962 song “Pretty Little Baby” on TikTok had lifted Connie’s spirits in recent months, despite her deteriorating health.

“I think that’s the amazing story: That she left this world as big of a star [as she ever was,” Ron remarked.

According to her acquaintance, when asked how Connie would like to be remembered, she would be content with the response, “I hope I did okay.”

“She would love seeing that [written],” he continued.

Connie, whose real name was Concetta Franconero, became well-known in the 1950s and had several singles on the charts, such as Where the Boys Are, Lipstick on Your Collar, Who’s Sorry Now, and Stupid Cupid.

Her rendition of “Who’s Sorry Now,” which was broadcast on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand in 1958 and went on to sell over a million copies and earn her a number one hit in the UK, helped catapult her to stardom.

Connie’s career began to wane in the latter part of 1960, and several personal tragedies marred the decade that followed.

Three years after being raped in a motel room on Long Island in 1974, she had nasal surgery and momentarily lost her voice.

After her brother George was killed by the mafia in 1981, Connie tried to resume her profession, but her father had her sent to several mental hospitals, and her mental health issues prevented her from doing so.

Outside of the public eye, the singer was married four times, but just one of those marriages lasted more than a year.

She married Dick Kanellis in 1964, but it ended after five months. She then married Izzy Marion in 1971, but they divorced ten months later.

Connie’s third and longest marriage, to Joseph Garzilli, with whom she adopted a son named Joseph Jr., lasted from 1973 to 1977. Even her fourth marriage, to Bob Parkinson in 1985, ended after only a few months.