Why Donna Summer kept cancer a secret: ‘God was going to heal her’

nypost.com:

recent episode of the “Allison Interviews” podcast, Brooklyn Sudano recalled details of her mother’s battle with lung cancer, which took the singer’s life in 2012.“My mother was extremely strong as a person.

I think her decision not to share [her diagnosis] with the world was that she was a woman of faith, and she really believed that God was going to heal her,” the “My Wife and Kids” star, 42, told host Allison Kugel.Summer, who Sudano described as “one of the strongest people” she knew, maintained positivity and surrounded herself with people who shared the same energy.“When you’re in the public eye, you end up carrying a lot of people’s emotions for them,” Sudano continued of her “trooper” mom. “She didn’t think she could carry other people’s fear about her illness, or their expectations of what it would look like.”The “Love to Love You Baby” hitmaker never went to the hospital, much to her doctor’s surprise, and Sudano said the late star was “working on” receiving love “without having to give” during the last year of her life.“She just had a strength and a will that was beyond anybody I’ve ever experienced before, and she passed at home in Naples, Florida.”The Grammy-winning Queen of Disco, who died at 63, is the subject of an HBO documentary that premiered this week.“Love to Love You, Donna Summer,” which debuted on May 20, opens the lid on the struggles the songstress faced during her successful career.She experienced sexual abuse at the hands of her pastor as a child and later was physically abused by her partner Peter Mühldorfer, who said he “never could forgive” himself after hitting her.