@Paysan Congolais

I can't imagine him dying from anything else; it was the 80s, he was a well known womanizer, and his sudden change to physical appearance in a short-time is consistent of AIDS related deaths.

People die of a lot of things.

AIDS rarely kills you that quick. Franco went from Sumo to skeleton very quicky then died. Even Freddy Mercury did not die that quick, although he was also a heavy drug user.

And being a womanizer is not enough to prove someone died of AIDS. Funny anecdote. Mobutu used to say that he doesn't believe in AIDS. Someone asked him why? Mobutu said: "I don't believe in AIDS because if it existed, Bomboko would be dead already".

Maybe he died of AIDS, but we never had anything to prove it, outside of rumors. I always went with the mysticism/poison theory. But who knows except his doctor.

@Paysan Congolais

With additional research, you might be right. From what I could find, all major publications that announced his death back in 1989 did not mention anything specific about his cause of death aside from a result of "a long illness". At this point, the only people who can answer the question as to the cause of death are the medical staff in Belgium that treated him prior to his demise (his death certificate) and his immediate family (his wife, closest friends, and children).

As for everyone else, it's hearsay. I'm not the biggest believer in spiritualism, but it's possible that such a quick and unexplainable demise could be something supernatural. However, I'm always going to lean on the side of science.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1989/10/14/deaths/c871abb3-ce1f-4e31-b42b-07c4cd7ec039/

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/17/obituaries/franco-51-zairian-band-leader-and-creator-of-the-soukous-style.html