Luther Vandross' Niece Wasn't Initially 'On Board' with Oprah Winfrey Interview After His Stroke (Exclusive)

The late R&B singer's niece said Vandross wanted to raise awareness of diabetes and strokes but that initially she "wasn't completely on board" with the interview

Luther Vandross gave an intimate interview to Oprah Winfrey in 2004 following his stroke — but his niece, Seveda Williams, tells PEOPLE that she didn’t initially agree with his decision to go through with the appearance.

“He did an Oprah interview, which I wasn't completely on board with, but my grandmother thought that it would help other stroke victims to see that,” Williams tells PEOPLE.

In the interview, Vandross wears sunglasses and his voice is audibly slurred and slowed, a lingering effect of his stroke on April 16, 2003.

But Vandross had an important message to share, his niece tells PEOPLE, which inspired him to give the interview.

“He just wanted people to know that taking good care of your health is extremely important and that having diabetes is not a joke and having a stroke from it is not either,” she said about Vandross, who was 54 when he died in 2005.

He “never really recovered” from the stroke, his rep said at the time.

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As Williams tells PEOPLE, Vandross “wanted everybody to do what they can to help themselves.”

While Vandross’s stroke was, indeed, debilitating, Williams says that “during that time that he was ill, there was always constant singing going on, not just between he and I, but all of his friends were coming around.”

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“There were rehearsals — [doing] that was kind of a therapy session all the time — having the singers around and just acting like they were preparing for a tour.”

“He was all into that,” she said.

And as Williams previously told PEOPLE, the eight-time Grammy Winner never stopped singing — even in his final days.

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“He was singing up to the last minute,” she told PEOPLE about her uncle, whose life story will be told in an upcoming documentary, produced by Jamie Foxx’s Foxxhole Productions and Colin Firth's Raindog Films.

“I hope people see him as human, a man who had a great career, but a man who lived a life.” 

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