Toni Braxton Thanks Fans for Support, Says She's Struggling with Lupus Symptoms & a Cough (Video)

Fresh off her concert tour, Toni Braxton shared a clip thanking her fans for their support through the "tough" times while touring with her condition. The singer also laid out her plans for the near future and top of her list is to "gain five pounds."

The problem with a chronic illness is that you will always be haunted by it for the rest of your life. Toni Braxton knows this too well since being diagnosed with Lupus.

The singer recently completed her “Long As I Live” tour and finally got the downtime she needed after performing with her recurring condition. In a video she shared on her Instagram, she thanked her fans for their support during her tour.

“It was tough- good and bad days having stupid lupus, but I couldn’t have done it without you guys”,” she says while coughing and lying in bed.

Braxton explained the cough has been with her for months. “But I’m feeling better now,” she assures. It helped, she said, that her audience sang with her during her shows when she “needed to get through the nights that were tough.”

“And I want you to know how much I really appreciate you. I got to go into the audience and see you guys and connect with you. My favorite thing to do is to go and say hi, and I got to do that, and touch you guys.”

Now that she’s off her tour, Braxton reveals she plans to enjoy her time binging and catching up on television shows and movies.

“For the next few weeks, I’m gonna gain five pounds. I’m gonna eat potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies, and I am going to watch Netflix, and watch my favorite show. I’m gonna get caught up on “The Good Wife”- the spin-off, and watch Martin Lawrence and Will Smith “Bad Boys” one and two, and wait for “Bad Boys III!”

Sounds like a perfect plan.

Braxton was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in 2010. The lifelong disease is characterized by the immune system attacking a person’s healthy tissue. There was a time after her diagnosis that doctors prohibited her from performing which led to her depression. The last thing she wanted was to retire from her career early.

In November, Braxton sat down with Jada Pinkett Smith and Adrienne Banfield-Jones on their Facebook Watch show, “Red Table Talk” and revealed her condition also took a toll on her marriage. Because she was unable to work, she believed it became the reason she and her then-husband Kerry Lewis divorced in 2013.

“I felt shallow because my ex-husband and I broke up for money issues. I found out I had lupus at the time. I couldn’t make money because I had lupus. I had to cancel the show. That was my personal contribution to the marriage failing, because who wants to take care of a person who’s sick all the time? He never said that, but I felt it.”

But Braxton’s illness, though a hindrance to her marriage, became a source of strength for her to keep pushing forward. Hence, she decided she wasn’t going to allow her condition to dictate the direction of her life. She vowed to live and make the most of her existence, which takes us to today. The singer couldn’t be happier thriving in her career and doing what she loves most. Yes, she’s been hospitalized more than once due to her illness, but she always managed to bounce back.

Braxton knows the only way to live with a recurring sickness is to keep fighting it and that’s exactly what she’s been doing.