Yesterday, the social networking site Twitter.com was abuzz with word of the passing of former NFL great Warren Sapp’s wife. But in reality, it was the wife of Gospel star Marvin Sapp who had died. (Warren and Marvin are not related.)
According to online reports, Dr. MaLinda Sapp died Thursday after a prolonged battle with colon cancer. She was 43.
According to a message on her husband’s website, MaLinda’s cancer went into remission earlier this year and she given a clean bill of health.
But by August the aggressive cancer had returned and quickly spread to her other internal organs.
Marvin Sapp is best known for his Grammy-nominated single “Never Would Have Made It.” His single “The Best in Me” was a no. 1 hit on the Gospel charts.
According to the AP, MaLinda Sapp was a “limited license” psychologist who taught at Grand Rapids Community College.
She also held a Doctorate of Divinity and was a professional counselor and administrative pastor at her husband’s Lighthouse Full Life Center Church in Grand Rapids, Mich.
The former MaLinda Prince and Sapp were childhood sweethearts who knew each other since grade school. The couple wed in 1992 but MaLinda described their first year of marriage as “devastating.”
“It was like the crash of the fairy tale,” she says. “I had the ideal marriage in my head — he’d come home from work at 5, we’d kiss, we’d have dinner, there’d be a dog. That didn’t occur.” Instead, there were lots of long-distance phone calls.
“I had to wrap my head around what our marriage was — not what I thought a marriage should be,” she says. “We really struggled that first year.” [link]
Sapp eventually asked his wife to be his manager so they would never be apart.
“She said, ‘I want nothing to do with the music business,’ “ he recalls. “I said, ‘I don’t want anybody else. I trust you. I love you.'”
MaLinda Sapp is survived by her husband and their three children, Marvin Jr., 14, Mikaila, 11, and Madisson, 9.
