Etterlene DeBarge — gospel singer and matriarch of the legendary DeBarge household — has died … TMZ has confirmed.

The mother-of-ten handed away peacefully in her sleep at Berkley Put up-Acute in Woodland Hills Friday morning — this in response to her daughter Etterlene “Bunny” DeBarge. A explanation for dying has not but been introduced, however sources inform us EDB was sick and battling dementia.

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Bunny broke the information on-line — posting a brief message to social media, merely asserting her mom’s dying to followers of the group … noting she was in a greater place now.

Etterlene met Robert DeBarge — her future husband — again in 1952 and married him the next yr. They constructed an enormous household, full with 10 totally different youngsters … seven of whom went on to play within the Motown tremendous group DeBarge.

The Grammy-nominated group was energetic from 1979 to 1989 earlier than the lure of solo contracts for Bunny and El DeBarge helped result in the group splitting up. There have been different components that finally ended the household band.

Etterlene and Robert divorced in 1974, and Etterlene chronicled their marriage and her youngsters’s rise to fame within the e book “Other Side of the Pain.” She married George Rodriguez in 1980 — a pairing that lasted the remainder of her life.

Etterlene is survived by George, eight of her youngsters, and quite a few grandchildren. One in all her sons, Robert DeBarge Jr., handed away in 1995 whereas Tommy DeBarge handed away in 2021. Clearly, her legacy and impression in music lives on by means of her youngsters.