MTV Will Pay Tribute To Aretha Franklin At Next Week’s Video Music Awards


Aretha Franklin will be honored at next week’s MTV Video Music Awards, with the network putting together a tribute to the legendary singer. The event is slated to air less than a week after her death.

Franklin passed away on Thursday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Tributes to the Queen of Soul have been pouring in since her death on Thursday, and the New York Post reported that MTV plans one of its own.

The VMAs, which air live on Monday, will have a yet-to-be-determined tribute to Franklin, executive producer Jesse Ignjatovic told The Associated Press on Friday.

“Whether it’s a performance or spoken — just something that’s organic and done in a way that feels tonally right because it’s Aretha Franklin,” he said.

There have already been a number of well-received tributes to Aretha Franklin. Her death prompted responses from across the world of music and entertainment. Even former president Barack Obama and the previous first lady took the opportunity to pay their respects.

“Aretha helped define the American experience,” Barack and Michelle Obama said in a statement in the hours after her death according to the Huffington Post. “In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade ? our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect. She helped us feel more connected to each other, more hopeful, more human. And sometimes she helped us just forget about everything else and dance.”

Franklin had close ties to Obama, performing at his 2009 presidential inauguration.

Another notable tribute came from singer Ariana Grande, who gave an emotional rendition of Franklin’s iconic “Natural Woman” on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Grande also shared some of her personal experiences with Franklin, including a conversation where Franklin asked Grande to listen to some music from one of her young relatives. Grande said she told Franklin to “just text me the MP3 or something,” which Franklin said she couldn’t quite do.

“And she was like, ‘Well, I don’t know how to do that so I’m just gonna send it to you,'” Grande said according to CNN. “And then, like, four months later I got a package with a CD, but it was nice. It was great.”

Those who want to see the tribute to Aretha Franklin can tune into the MTV Video Music Awards when it is broadcast on Monday. The show will air at 8 p.m. EST.

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