Vesta Williams, an R&B singer popularly known for her powerful voice and 80’s hits, was found dead in her California hotel room last night. More details after the jump…

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(HP)–Though news sources have reported the singer was 48 years old, Williams can be seen in a 2010 interview saying she was 53.

TMZ is reporting that bottles of prescription pills were found in the hotel room, and that the authorities are treating the singer’s death as a death or suicide.

Williams scored a big hit with “Congratulations,” a song about a woman who is distraught upon learning that her former lover is getting married. “Congratulations,” with its vocal acrobatics and dramatic story, became a talent show staple.

Jackeé Harry, the television actress, tweeted her condolences about the singer’s passing.

“…just received truly devastating news: R&B great, and my friend of many yrs, Vesta Williams (@vesta4u), has passed away. #RIPVesta”

In the 1990s, Williams made headlines for her dramatic weight loss. She told Ebony that she started to rapidly gain weight when her singing career began to falter. Williams, who was 5-foot-3, eventually reached a size 26. She said her size was the reason she lost her recording contract.

“When I lost my record deal and my phone wasn’t ringing, I realized that I had to reassess who Vesta was and figure out what was going wrong,” she said. “I knew it wasn’t my singing ability. So it had to be that I was expendable because I didn’t have the right look.”

The singer went on to lose 100 lbs, and got down down to a size 6, while finding something of a second career as a songwriter and session singer.

In recent years, Williams had become an advocate for the prevention of childhood obesity and juvenile diabetes.