Thursday night, Ariana Grande paid tribute to Aretha Franklin on The Tonight Show. According to backstage sources, following her performance of “Natural Woman” with The Roots, “Ariana was in tears.” Before the death of The Queen of Soul, Ariana had planned to sing “God Is A Woman” and perform a comedy sketch with Jimmy Fallon. Those plans got scrapped as soon as word came from Detroit that Aretha passed. Ariana was initially reluctant to sing one of Aretha’s timeless tunes. She told producers she felt “too emotional” to pull it off. It was the leader of The Roots, drummer Questlove, who convinced Ariana she ought to sing an Aretha song.