All About the 1974 Tragedy That Changed Connie Francis’s Life Forever

Iconic pop singer Connie Francis had a remarkable career with plenty of highs, releasing hits like "Where the Boys Are" in 1960 and "Pretty Little Baby" in 1962. Sadly, she passed away on July 16, 2025, at the age of 87, her copyrights and royalties manager, Ron Roberts, shared in a Facebook post. “It is with a heavy heart and extreme sadness that I inform you of the passing of my dear friend Connie Francis last night,” he wrote.

While her music hit its peak in the 1950s and ’60s, it recently found a new audience on TikTok, trending in countless videos that racked up millions of views. Despite all the high points in her career and life, something horrifying happened to Connie in 1974, perhaps at the height of it all, that no one saw coming. Here’s what went down that year, and how it impacted her thereafter.

In 1974, Connie Francis was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her hotel room while she was sleeping. The singer had just finished performing at the Westbury Music Fair on Long Island and returned to her room at the Howard Johnson motel in Westbury, N.Y. After settling in and going to bed, a man entered her room, held her at knifepoint, and raped her.

Here’s what led up to that night, and what happened after.

That same year, before the rape occurred, Connie revealed in a 2002 interview with Larry King that she had suffered a miscarriage. Her husband at the time, Michael, encouraged her to get back into music, telling her to “go sing some pretty songs,” she recalled. “So I got a new act. I got a press agent and I started, and then on the fourth night of the engagement is when the rape occurred.”

After her show at the Westbury Music Fair, Connie returned to the motel, and the room she had been staying in had a connecting room shared by a married couple who served as her bodyguard and secretary. Although her husband had instructed them not to leave her alone, they stayed in their adjoining room that night, leaving Connie vulnerable to what was about to unfold.

She says it occurred sometime after 3 a.m. She had been up late on the phone discussing a possible adoption, and about an hour after she drifted off to sleep, a man entered her room. “A Black man with a knife was at my bed, pulling my hair,” Connie told Larry King.

At first, she thought he might just be after money, as two other men in the hotel had been robbed that night. But since Connie didn’t have anything to give him (she usually only carried $100, which she had left with her secretary), she believed he saw her as an easy target. She tried to stay calm and even asked him, “Can’t you get a job?” to which he responded, “Why should I get a job when I can do this for nothing?”

Needless to say, Connie thought she was going to die that night. The man even left a mark on her neck with his knife but ultimately didn’t kill her. She later speculated that perhaps he let her go because she was famous and figured police would work harder to track him down.

Not only did the rape leave physical scars, but it also left emotional ones. “The rape was horrendous for me,” she shared in the interview. “I couldn’t mention the word rape until I went back to work in 1981 and did the David Hartman Show.” It took Connie seven years to return to the stage, and after that night, she never stayed in a hotel room alone again.

Connie revealed that the man was never identified or caught. And while she didn’t get justice from him directly, she did end up suing the Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge chain after learning that “there had been 11 previous break-ins” at that location, she told Larry. While the court ultimately ruled in her favor, she never truly got over the traumatic event.