*Aretha Franklin’s granddaughter served up her musical talents when she auditioned for “American Idol” during Sunday’s episode.
Grace Franklin, 15, also paid tribute to her late grandmother by performing Aretha’s classic “Ain’t No Way” and the Lauryn Hill version of “Killing Me Softly,” to judges Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan.
“Stop right there. That is your grandma?” said Richie before revealing that he has kept voicemails from the Queen of Soul, who was his longtime friend.
After Grace performed, Richie and Bryan voted “no” while Perry gave her a “yes,” and urged her fellow judges to change their vote.
Watch the moment via the YouTube clip below.
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“Grace Franklin, I love you and I think the best thing for you in life is to take a shot at going backwards. Go back and get a running start and come at this again,” Richie told the high school student from Detroit, Michigan.
“Give her a chance. I am sure Aretha wasn’t Aretha when she walked in the room, but somebody said ‘yes, I want to work with you. I want to develop you. You got something,’ ” said Perry to Richie and Bryan — but they weren’t having it.
“Go back and put the shyness behind you and the voice in front of you, you are going to be something amazing,” said Richie to Grace.
Aretha died in 2018 at age 76 from pancreatic cancer.
Grace talked about her relationship with her famous grandmother in a prerecorded interview on “American Idol.”
“I don’t think I could fully grasp the fact that she was famous worldwide,” she said. “Because to me she was always grandma… I was really close to my grandma. I got to see her all the time. I got to travel with her a lot.”
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