What happened to Muni Long? R&B singer opens up about health struggles 

The R&B singer Muni Long, who has been struggling for years with serious health issues, opened up about battling lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease, on ABC's popular chat show Good Morning America on June 23, 2026.

Nominated for the prestigious NAACP Image Award in 2025, Muni Long shed light on when doctors informed her that she had to undergo a lung transplant or else she would be dead within a week.

The 37-year-old Muni Long, who was first diagnosed with lupus in 2014, discussed her double lung transplant surgery, which took place in December 2025, and spoke about her health journey so far. During her conversation with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America about the difficulties one has to face with suffering from lupus, Muni said:

"The road is tough, like, even when you are healthy ... I should have never taken that tour, but there was so much going on in my life where I had to do it."

While talking about the time when she was touring with Brandy and Monica on their 'The Boy Is Mine Tour', Long revealed that she suffered from pneumonia. Then, as she shared that during her last stage performance, she somehow managed to sing only two songs, and that she was eventually forced to stop her live performances, Muni said:

"It was just like ... I couldn't even get out of the bed to make my call-time for a stage. In the last show, I just barely made it. I was only able to do two songs."

The Butterfly Effect singer, Muni Long, then revealed how she woke up in a hospital one day and was informed by a group of doctors that she immediately needed to undergo a double lung transplant or else she wouldn't pull through. Long said:

"And they're all like, 'You need a transplant,'" she recalled. "And I'm like, 'Well, it sounds like you guys have a time[line], like, how long do I have to live?' And they go, 'A week. A week to live."

While discussing her recovery from her critical operation, Muni Long further added:

"I'm six months post-op," she said. "No symptoms, asymptomatic, no infections, none of that."

Muni Long reveals her struggles with lupus

During an exclusive interview with People in 2025, Muni Long opened up about her struggles with the chronic autoimmune disease and how lupus flare-ups would make her day-to-day life extremely difficult. Long said:

"[People with lupus] have little signs, right? Like my fingertips will start turning blue. My skin will get really pale. I'll start looking super white. Which is hard to imagine because I'm brown-skinned. But literally my skin will turn like a light, ashy color."

Talking about how a lupus flare-up made her cancel a live show, Muni said:

"I recently had to cancel my college football playoff performance on Jan. 18th because I had a flare-up due to some personal things."

Long talked about the time when she had to perform at Chris Brown's 11:11 tour last year and shared how she found a way to keep her lupus flare-up in check, and said:

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"Please turn the air off when I come in the building. I'm not being a diva, but literally if I get too cold, I start coughing and I won't be able to sing. And then when I get off stage, I have to lay down immediately and wrap up in covers and steam my voice."

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