Pop icon Stevie Wonder says there’s a connection between Aretha Franklin’s death from pancreatic cancer and climate change.

Mr. Wonder, appearing Friday on “CBS Good Morning,” said in an emotional interview the day after her death that he had prayed the legendary singer would beat the odds and recover, adding that he believed the incidence of disease was linked to global warming.

“I just feel that all these various diseases that we have and all these things that are happening in the world in part is because there are those who don’t believe in global warming, don’t believe that what we do affects the world, what we eat affects the world, affects us,” Mr. Wonder said.

“I just hope that people will grow up and grow out of the foolishness,” he said.

The 68-year-old musician said he visited the Queen of Soul near the end of her life, but that “she wasn’t able to speak.” She died at age 76 after a battle with pancreatic cancer at her home in Detroit.

Mr. Wonder has spoken out in the past against climate change, saying last year at a hurricane-relief concert that “anyone who believes there is no such thing as global warming must be blind or unintelligent.”

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