Following Aretha Franklins death Thursday morning, the outpouring of tributes and fond memories was immediate and prodigious. All day, odes to her talent, her activism, and her fur coats seeped from seemingly every corner of the Internet—a fitting goodbye to a woman unequivocally known as the Queen of Soul. As the night drew to a close, the praise didnt stop: several late night hosts found their own way to remember Franklin. The Tonight Show began with a cold open: guest Ariana Grande performed “Natural Woman” with The Roots.
Grande famously admired Franklin, and had posted a photo of them together to social media in the afternoon. According to TMZ, Grande was originally set to take part a comedy sketch, and was reluctant to cover Franklin at first, worried she was too emotional over the death of one of her heroes. Questlove convinced her, the gossip site reports, and her rendition with The Roots garnered a standing ovation once it ended. Still, when she got backstage, the singer reportedly broke down in tears.
On Late Show, Stephen Colbert went a different route, taking his audience back to the time he hosted the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors, where Franklin sang “Natural Woman” for an extremely appreciative Carole King—and brought then-president Barack Obama to tears less than a minute into the song.
“The world is poorer for her not being here,” Colbert told his audience as he began his tribute. “There is no Queen of Soul right now, and she can never be replaced. I was lucky enough to see her perform live once. . . She was playing Natural Woman for Carole King, center stage on a grand piano, and I was standing stage right, just past the curtain watching her. And as she started, I said to the man standing next to me, one of the stage hands, I said, Man, I wish I could have seen her when she was younger. When she was in full voice. And boy am I stupid, because this is what happened.”
Colbert played the clip of Franklins performance in its entirety—and by the time it ended with a standing ovation, his own audience had burst into applause as well. How could they not?
And as he filmed The Daily Show, Trevor Noah offered a personal memory as well. His candid spoken tribute was posted online as one of the shows “Between the Scenes” clips.
“I remember I used to sing the songs with my mom,” Noah told his audience. “I grew up, you know, most of the time it was just me and my mom. So I used to sing all the songs—not really knowing what they meant, per se. As a little kid I was confident like, You make me feel like a natural woman.”
“But what I loved is, Aretha Franklin, you know, you see everybody talking about this. . . It's one of those examples where you see an artist who uses their platform to go beyond just making money and doing what they do,” Noah added. “You read these beautiful stories about how Aretha Franklin had it in her contract that she wouldn't perform for segregated audiences. . . She was one of the first people who supported Angela Davis, you know, from the Black Panthers. She fought for Martin Luther King. This is at a time when it wasn't cool to do that; it was risky to you and your livelihood.”
Noah also praised Franklin for writing songs that celebrated femininity and womens power at a time when they were not treated with such respect. “The #MeToo movement has shown that we still have a long way to go, but at that time it was pretty much like, Women, keep quiet,” Noah said. As he wrapped up, the comedian said, “Shell be missed. Everything we see today, in so many ways in music, male and female, is because of her.”
Get Vanity Fairs HWD NewsletterSign up for essential industry and award news from Hollywood.Laura BradleyLaura Bradley is a Hollywood writer for VanityFair.com.
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