Cilla Black "willed herself to die", according to her former manager and long-time friend Terry McCann.
Cilla Black
The 'Anyone Who Had A Heart' singer passed away aged 72 on the weekend and Terry - who lived near Cilla when they were growing up in Liverpool and later became her first manager - has revealed the news didn't come as a shock to him.
He said: "I wasn't surprised when I found out she had died."
Terry claims he last saw Cilla in Spain - where she was found dead in her holiday home - during the past year, where she told him she was losing her hearing and eyesight and was suffering with arthritis.
Speaking about how she told him she was still missing her late husband Bobby Willis - who lost his battle with cancer in 1999 - McCann explained: "The last thing she said to me was she was going blind, she showed me her hands, she had arthritis.
"She willed herself to die. She said, 'Bobby's waiting for me'."
Cilla previously confessed she didn't want to live long enough to become a burden to her family and Terry insists that was a constant worry for her.
He added to BBC News: "Her mother went the same way. I don't know what her mother died of but it seemed she associated it with her mother's death and she just knew it was going to happen.
"She just said, 'Look at me, I'm a wreck.' I was trying to cheer her up. She knew something we didn't.
"She knew she was going to die and she said she wasn't going to linger like her mother.
"Her mother was ill for two years and she had the same complaint and she said she was never going to linger like that."
It is not yet known what caused Cilla's death although a source has claimed she may have suffered a fall as her son Robert reportedly found her lying face upwards in a solarium-style sun terrace next to her bedroom with marks on her arms after kicking her door down when she failed to wake from an afternoon nap.
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