Alemour, Olu (May 3, 2007). "People Get Teddy". wavenewspapers.com. Archived from the original on October 12, 2008 . Retrieved August 3, 2008. They were interested in finding out what I had in my system. The wanted to find out what was in my urine.” I was very upset with them. I must have gotten to the hospital around 1 AM and didn’t leave until 6 AM.’ In the spring of 2006, Pendergrass met Joan Williams. He proposed to her after four months, and they married in a private ceremony officiated by his pastor, Alyn Waller of Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, on Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008. [22] A formal wedding was celebrated at The Ocean Cliff Resort in Newport, Rhode Island, on September 6, 2008. As members of Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, Joan Pendergrass set up The Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church Youth Fund in the name of Pendergrass to provide assistance and a center for Philadelphia's inner city youth.

The 105-minute documentary includes rarely seen original footage of Teddy’s performances as well as candid interviews with people who performed with him, close friends and family members. Then 31 year old Tenika Watson’s injuries were more emotional than physical. Her life after the accident suffered as a result of the publicity surrounding the crash and after she was outed as a transwoman. First the car started speeding up really fast. And I was wondering is he driving fast. But he wasn’t. It was out of control. And I noticed he was struggling with the wheel and all of a sudden I heard this great big bang. Next thing I know the press was there and I got into the ambulance with him and I helped him as much as I could. Across a series of 14 chapter episodes, Tenika's voice has the power to heal and spread love to anyone - especially trans people - whose lives have been consistently questioned, undervalued, and physically and sexually harmed just for being their true selves.In March 1982, R&B superstar Teddy Pendergrass lost control of his car on Philadelphia's Lincoln Drive. While he survived, the accident rendered him handicapped and his career as a recording artist vanished. Tenika Watson was the passenger in the car crash. She not only survived the crash, but decades of transphobic rumors - some started by Teddy's own manager, Shep Gordon - blaming her for the accident.

Pendergrass got well-wishes from thousands of his fans during his recovery. In August 1982, Philadelphia International released This One's for You, which failed to chart successfully, as did 1983's Heaven Only Knows. Both albums included material Pendergrass had recorded before the crash. The albums completed his contract with Philadelphia International. By the time Pendergrass decided to return to the studio to work on new music he had struggled to find a recording deal. Eventually signing a contract with Asylum Records and completing physical therapy, he released Love Language in 1984. [7] The album included the pop ballad " Hold Me", featuring a then-unknown Whitney Houston. [7] It reached No. 38 on the Billboard album chart and was certified Gold by the RIAA. On June 5, 2009, Pendergrass underwent successful surgery for colon cancer and returned home to recover. A few weeks later he returned to the hospital with respiratory issues. After seven months, he died of respiratory failure on January 13, 2010, with his wife Joan by his side, at Bryn Mawr Hospital in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. He was 59. [23] His body was interred at the West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.While Watson survived with minor injuries, Pendergrass tragically suffered a spinal cord injury, leaving him a paraplegic, paralyzed from the chest down for the rest of his life. On July 13, 1985, Teddy Pendergrass made a triumphant return to the stage at the Live Aid concert in his hometown of Philadelphia, in front of a live audience of over 99,000 and 1.5 billion TV viewers. PGN: What’s a smell that makes you stop and reflect? TW: Lavender. It makes me think of the country and fields of flowers. In case it is not evident by now, Pendergrass was something of a philanderer. His wife Karen and other partners took it as a given that when he toured, Teddy would sleep with whomever he wanted. “I’m very choosy about women,” Pendergrass told an interviewer in 1978. “I’m not about to have any lady who’s going to run me down and say I’ve got to report to her where I’m at. She has to realise that I’m a travelling entertainer, and if it’s rough on her that’s the end of that.” He fathered three children by two different women, all of whom were born in 1974. Two days after the accident, news broke of Watson's past, including the gender confirmation surgery she'd undergone five years prior ("I don't think Teddy knew about my transition at all," she says today) and her multiple arrests for prostitution.

Piner, Mary-Louise. "Return to Stage a Personal Triumph for Teddy Pendergrass". disability-marketing.com. Archived from the original on July 24, 2008 . Retrieved August 3, 2008. a b Pareles, John (January 14, 2010). "Teddy Pendergrass, R&B Soul Singer, Dies at 59". The New York Times . Retrieved February 12, 2019.

About The TransGriot

Celebrate #TransJoy by supporting My Life Is No Accident: Tenika Watson's Story, an audio-memoir that documents Tenika's journey of self-love, survival & recovery! But Pendergrass suffered a spinal cord injury, leaving him paralysed from the chest down. He was 31. Following the tragic accident there were many who doubted the soul singer’s ability to ever return to making music. My Life Is No Accident is a memoir spanning five decades. Tenika Watson survived multiple childhood traumas including bullying in her small home town and abduction by an abusive aunt. She later experienced the thrills, dangers, and vices of the big city in the 1970s. Tenika was finally on her way to stability as a model and performer in 1980s Philadelphia when her path crossed with the famed singer Teddy Pendergrass, who offered her a ride home. When the brakes of his car failed and they slammed into a tree, Pendergrass was paralyzed for life. In the aftermath of the accident and the subsequent media frenzy, Tenika was thrown into a downward spiral when it was publically revealed that she had been born male. My Life is No Accident covers her early childhood through her fall and recovery after the crash. It is a story of innocence, family, coming of age, love, struggle, and overcoming adversity.