Aretha Franklin And William Wilkerson Engaged

After two marriages and a stint in the hospital in late 2010, Aretha Franklin, 69, is as vivacious as ever.

On Monday she announced her engagement to longtime friend William "Willie" Wilkerson. The duo are planning a summer wedding in Miami Beach. They will follow it with an exclusive reception on a private yacht, reports the U.K.'s Daily Mail. "Ms. Franklin is considering Donna Karan, Valentino and the queen of wedding dresses, Vera Wang, to design her gown," said her rep, reports People.

After Franklin's health scare over a year ago, she dropped 85 lbs., and was rumored to have had everything from pancreatic cancer to gastric bypass surgery — claims she denied. "That is crazy," she said of the latter rumor, according to the Mail. "It definitely was not the bariatric or, what is it, gastric …? Yeah, I can't even tell you the correct name of it."

She also finds the other popular explanations for her illness bizarre. "I don't know where pancreatic cancer came from," she also said. "I was sitting there reading the newspaper and it was saying someone in my family said that. No one in my family ever said that to anybody."

But now Franklin's svelter self is nipping the rumor mill in the bud before it gets started. "No, I'm not pregnant!" she joked.

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