Killing Me Softly singer Roberta Flack dead at 88

by · Mail Online

Singer Roberta Flack has died at the age of 88 in Manhattan after suffering a heart attack.

The 1970s R&B legend was known for hits like Killing Me Softly With His Song and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. 

Her representatives announced her passing but did not offer a cause of death, as reported by Variety. 

'We are heartbroken that the glorious Roberta Flack passed away this morning, February 24, 2025,' her representatives said in a statement issued on Monday.

'She died peacefully surrounded by her family. Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.'

Flack's friend and manager Suzzaner Koga told The New York Times the singer died on her way to the hospital after suffering cardiac arrest.  

Flack announced in 2022 she had ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and could no longer sing.

The Grammy-winning singer and pianist's intimate vocal and musical style made her one of the top recordings artists of the 1970s and an influential performer long after.

R&B legend Roberta Flack has died at the age of 88. She is pictured in 2020
The 1970s R&B legend was known for hits like Killing Me Softly With His Song and The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. She is pictured in 1971
Flack performs onstage at the Park West Auditorium, Chicago, Illinois, March 30, 1981

Flack became an overnight star after Clint Eastwood used The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face as the soundtrack for one of cinema’s more memorable and explicit love scenes, between the actor and Donna Mills in his 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. 

Flack’s other hits from the 1970s included the cozy Feel Like Makin’ Love and two duets with her close friend and former Howard University classmate Donny Hathaway, Where Is the Love and The Closer I Get to You — a partnership that ended in tragedy. In 1979, she and Hathaway were working on an album of duets when he suffered a breakdown during recording and later that night fell to his death from his hotel room in Manhattan. 

She never matched her first run of success, although she did have a hit in the 1980s with the Peabo Bryson duet Tonight, I Celebrate My Love and in the 1990s with the Maxi Priest duet Set the Night to Music. 

In the mid-90s, Flack received new attention after the Fugees recorded a Grammy-winning cover of Killing Me Softly, which she eventually performed on stage with the hip-hop group. 

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.

From left, American musicians Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon, Japanese American musician Yoko Ono, her husband British musician John Lennon, and American musician Roberta Flack talk backstage at the 17th Grammy Awards
Flack announced in 2022 she had ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and could no longer sing. She is seen in 2011

'I love that connection to other artists because we understand music, we live music, it’s our language,' Flack told songwriteruniverse.com in 2020. 

'Through music we understand what we are thinking and feeling. No matter what challenge life presents, I am at home with my piano, on a stage, with my band, in the studio, listening to music. I can find my way when I hear music.'