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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.
Prince Discovery Denise ‘Vanity’ Matthews Dies Aged 57
The singer behind the dance hit "Nasty Girl," Denise Matthews spent her last decades as a sober Christian evangelist
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See Robin Williams in These Deleted Mrs. Doubtfire ScenesEdgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut Who Walked on the Moon, Dead at 85Earth, Wind & Fire Founder Maurice White Dies at 74Denise Matthews — far better known by her stage name, Vanity — has died at age 57 from kidney failure, the result of years of crack cocaine abuse, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
The singer and actress died Monday in a hospital in Fremont, Calif., the Bay Area city she called home.
“She absolute loved God unto salvation,” her friend MC Hammertweeted Monday night as the Grammy Awards got underway. “She fell ill during the night [and] ended up on life support.”
A sex vixen fashioned in the image of her rock-star mentor and one-time lover, Prince, Matthews had several provocative hits in the early 1980s as lead singer of the group Vanity 6.
The biggest by far was 1982’s “Nasty Girl.” An infectious synth-funk single with overtly sexual lyrics, the song stalled on mainstream radio but managed to reach No. 1 on the Billboard dance charts. It has since gone on to become a dance-floor classic.
Matthews disbanded Vanity 6 after the group’s debut release and signed with Motown Records in 1984, under which she released two solo records,Wild Animal and Skin on Skin. She also embarked on an acting career, starring in the Berry Gordy-produced musical martial-arts film, The Last Dragon, in 1985.
The following year, she was cast opposite John Stamos in Never Too Young to Die, a disastrous send-up of James Bond movies that featured KISS’ Gene Simmons as a cross-dressing villain.
“She was pretty wild,” Stamos recently told THR about his co-star. “She was like Al Pacino in Scarface, blasting these f—ing [prop] machine guns all over the place. We weren’t even rolling!”
Matthews’ reputation as a hard partier in those early years of fame was both widely known and well-founded. As she cycled through rocker boyfriends (Billy Idol, Adam Ant and Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx, among them), she developed a dangerous addiction to crack cocaine.
In 1994, that addiction led to near-fatal renal failure. She later said that Jesus Christ appeared to her at that time and offered her a second chance at life if she abandoned her Vanity persona.
Matthews spent the years since sober and a born again Christian. After a kidney transplant in 1997, she became a Christian evangelist. She told her story in a self-published 2010 autobiography, Blame It on Vanity.
Matthews’ health woes took a turn for the worse late last year, however, and she set up a crowdfunding effort to pay for her medical treatment after being diagnosed with sclerosis encapsulating peritonitis, a severely painful kidney condition. She raised $6,599 of the $50,000 she had sought.
Denise Mathews (Vanity from Vanity 6) has Died
Written by KevRoss - February 15, 2016 - Industry News
The industry and fans remember the stunning Denise “Vanity” Mathews who has died following years of ailments that she attributed to her drug use during her heyday in the 80s as a member of Vanity 6. She was 57. Denise admitted to unimaginable abuse that she suffered as a child growing up in Niagara Falls, Ontario from her father that later haunted her during her success as an international singer. After being Prince’s protegé and girlfriend she left the group Vanity 6 to be a solo act on Motown records with minimal success. She wrote a book about her life “Blame it on Vanity” and released it in 2012 and decided to sell it herself instead of using a major publisher and the book was not a success as she had been out of the industry at least two decades at that point. I was supposed to do a podcast with her on her book but we never locked in a time or date.
Denise was forced to set up a go fund me campaign to raise money for her continued ailing health which Radio Facts posted this past August. It’s most unfortunate that she will be mourned by a ton of other celebrities but she was alone and felt the need to ask fans to help her raise $7000 of a proposed $50,000 for medical expenses. She gave her life to God after years of drug abuse, tumultuous relationships and heartache and she consistently ministered in Los Angeles over the past 20 years. She stated getting saved, saved her life. She will forever be immortalized as a lead in the Motown cult film classic “The Last Dragon.”
Her last post updating her health was in August 2015.
My Nephrologist told me Friday afternoon that i did not have “Pancreatitis” and that is good news however the bad news is they say i have “Sclerosis Encapsulating Peritonitis” I thought the first diagnosis was weird because i was never a drinker nor have i ever been drunk in my whole life, that was not my drug of choice “back in the day. I was on a Peritoneal type of dialysis for six years and we know that whatever we do unto our body feeding it chemically, dialysis medicines, unless it is perfectly organic can lead to much suffering in its end. I went into the emergency twice this week, boy it is not fun suffering in this body of weak flesh… but Jesus is straightening out all my crooked places in my heart as i go thru this time of pain….i won’t complain! I cried aloud begging Jesus to help me thru this pain and three nurses rushed to my door … only to tell me loudly “BE Quiet” I had been waiting in excruciating pain for at least an hour and 45 minutes begging for help!…Then they slammed my door and left me. “Blessed are those that are persecuted for righteousness sake..It was the name of Jesus that some do hate…but forgive them they know not what they do, i pray them Jesus before it is too late amen.
So pray for me now for i am believing in complete healing of this body longing to be healed made whole my heart..I have my vision, i keep it close. I repent daily my sins, my faults and my shortcomings. He has brought me out of so many fires, oh so many, 23 years alive after the doctors pronounced i would be dead way back then 1992…I lift my head up high to the sky and do thank my Jesus that He has kept me thus far and even as much as this body would love to be with Him in Heaven right this minute… for He is my true love and King over my life…even as the Apostle Paul yearned also to be with Him in the Heavenly’s ….As well David the King..we have our duty and i will serve my generation…i am happy to live and declare my testimonies with joy unspeakable believing for Him to pull me thru. I will endure until He comes for my soul. ..Tho my testimonies, some hard and some dangerously painful are all unto the glory of the Lord. i am learning continuous obedience always hoping for change to become who He is… thru all my sufferings …And my King has made my heart soft…My very first prayer on my deathbed to Jesus was” Do whatever it takes to save me, just don’t let me die…Whatever it takes, make my heart whole…He is busily working on me…If you are suffering thru something right now i lift you to Jesus ..may He preserve you and keep you unto His heavenly kingdom and may you endure thru your change in Him…He knows what it takes to break us, make us deliver us into His Holy hands amen…Make our hearts Whole amen…!nluvdenise
RIP Vanity.
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so sad and too young, but she was blessed to have another chance for 20 years, though I loved her rockstar getup
do, just not like 
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reported dupe.
