(KTLA) – Singer Roberta Flack has passed away. She was 88 years old.
The Grammy-award winner was known for such hits as “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” “Killing Me Softly with His Song” and “Feel Like Makin’ Love.”
Flack died at home “surrounded by her family,” her publicist Elaine Schock said in a statement to the Associated Press.
“We are heartbroken that the glorious Roberta Flack passed away this morning, February 24, 2025,” her representative said in a statement obtained by Variety. “She died peacefully surrounded by her family. Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.”
Roberta Cleopatra Flack, the daughter of musicians, was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and raised in Arlington, Virginia. A gospel fan as a child, she was so talented a piano player that at age 15 she received a full scholarship to Howard, the historically Black university.
She was discovered in the late 1960s by jazz musician Les McCann, who later wrote that “her voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked every emotion I’ve ever known.” Versatile enough to summon the up-tempo gospel passion of Aretha Franklin, Flack often favored a more reflective and measured approach.
The classically trained singer and pianist rose to fame after Clint Eastwood used her song “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face” in the 1971 film “Play Misty for Me.” The hushed, hymn-like ballad, with Flack’s graceful soprano afloat on a bed of soft strings and piano, topped the Billboard pop chart in 1972 and received a Grammy for record of the year.
In 1973, she matched both achievements with “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” becoming the first artist to win consecutive Grammys for best record. Overall, she won five Grammys (three for “Killing Me Softly”), was nominated eight other times and was given a Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 2020, with John Legend and Ariana Grande among those praising her.
Flack was briefly married to Stephen Novosel, an interracial relationship that led to tension with each of their families, and earlier, had a son, the singer and keyboardist Bernard Wright. For years, she lived in Manhattan’s Dakota apartment building, on the same floor as John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who became a close friend and provided liner notes for a Flack album of Beatles covers, “Let It Be Roberta.” She also devoted extensive time to the Roberta Flack School of Music, based in New York and attended mostly by students between ages 6 to 14.
In 2022, Flack retired from singing after revealing she had ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and could no longer sing.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.