Queen Latifah On Being Her Mom’s Caregiver: ‘I Would Just Want to Fall Apart’
Queen Latifah has never been the type to stay in one lane. With magnetic performances in Girls Trip, Chicago, and Beauty Shop, a starring role on CBS crime drama The Equalizer (for which she is also an executive producer), and numerous Grammy Awards for her pioneering rap records in the ’90s, the 51-year-old is one of Hollywood’s most talented multi-hyphenates.
On top of her work in entertainment, she’s also held the role of caregiver. In 2018, Latifah lost her beloved mother, Rita Owens, to interstitial lung disease (ILD). The disease causes progressive, irreversible scarring of the lungs that can lead to life-threatening health issues like high blood pressure in the lungs, right-sided heart failure, and respiratory failure, according to the Mayo Clinic. The prevalence of ILD in the U.S. is 67.2 cases per 100,000 women and 80.9 cases per 100,000 men. This makes it slightly more common than lung cancer in the U.S. (which has a prevalence of 60 cases per 100,000 women, according to the CDC).
