Roberta Flack: Life, Music, and Enduring Legacy

Few voices in American music carried the quiet authority of Roberta Flack’s — a blend of classical discipline and soulful intuition that turned every ballad into a conversation. When she announced her ALS diagnosis in 2022, fans understood what it meant: the voice that carried “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Killing Me Softly with His Song” would go silent.

Age at death: 88 ·
Number-one singles: 2 ·
Grammy Awards won: 4 ·
Children: 1 ·
Marriages: 1

Seven facts, one throughline: Roberta Flack carved a singular path through American music by refusing to be limited by genre.

The key facts below capture her essential biography — a life that spanned almost nine decades and left an indelible mark on music.

The implication: Flack’s range across R&B, soul, jazz, and folk wasn’t genre-hopping — it was the sound of a classically trained pianist who trusted her instincts over industry categories.

What illness did Roberta Flack suffer from?

Diagnosis and public announcement

• Roberta Flack was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2022, a progressive neurodegenerative disease affecting nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Her representatives announced the news in November 2022, stating the illness had made it impossible for her to sing (CNN).
• The Associated Press reported on November 15, 2022, that Flack’s representative said the illness made it impossible for her to sing.
• Flack’s spokesperson told NPR that ALS made it “impossible to sing and not easy to speak.”

Impact on her career and public appearances

• ALS, also commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, gradually robs individuals of muscle control, including the ability to speak and sing (CNN).
• Rolling Stone reported that Flack was diagnosed with ALS in 2022 and lost the ability to sing after the diagnosis.
• People reported that Flack had been diagnosed with ALS in August 2022, months before the public announcement.

The pattern: The timeline between diagnosis and public disclosure suggests Flack and her team chose the moment carefully — announcing the disease on her own terms before the rumor mill could define the narrative for her. For an artist who controlled her own stage, it was a final act of agency.

Did Roberta Flack have any children?

Son Bernard Wright

• Roberta Flack had one son, Bernard Wright, who was a musician. Bernard predeceased her, having died in 2022 (Rolling Stone).
• Flack often credited her son as an inspiration in her later work, though she kept much of her family life private.

Legacy and family influence on her music

• Bernard Wright’s death in the same year Flack was diagnosed with ALS meant 2022 was a double blow for the singer — losing her son and her voice in the same stretch of months.
• The loss of her son added a layer of personal grief to the professional devastation of the ALS diagnosis.

Why this matters: Flack’s family life was never a headline — she guarded it fiercely. But the symmetry of losing her son and her ability to sing in the same year reshapes how fans understand the emotional weight of her final years.

What was Roberta Flack’s number one song?

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

• Flack’s first number-one hit was “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972. The song won Grammy Record of the Year in 1973 (ABC News).
• The track was originally featured on her debut album “First Take,” released in 1969, but gained widespread popularity after Clint Eastwood used it in his film “Play Misty for Me.”

Killing Me Softly with His Song

• Flack’s second number-one hit was “Killing Me Softly with His Song” in 1973, which won Grammy Record of the Year in 1974 — making Flack the first artist ever to win that award in back-to-back years (ABC News).
• Both songs remain among the most acclaimed ballads of the 1970s and have collectively earned billions of streams across platforms.

The trade-off: Two consecutive Record of the Year wins is a feat no solo artist has repeated since. But the sheer dominance of those two songs sometimes overshadows the rest of Flack’s catalog — an unfortunate side effect of having hits that big.

Who sang Killing Me Softly at Roberta Flack’s funeral?

Tribute performance by Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean

• At Roberta Flack’s funeral, Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean performed “Killing Me Softly with His Song” as a tribute. The performance was described by the official Roberta Flack Instagram account as “A tribute fit for a Queen” (USA Today).
• Stevie Wonder also performed at the memorial, alongside Lisa Fischer (Rolling Stone).
• The service was held at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, one of the oldest Black churches in the United States (USA Today).

“A tribute fit for a Queen.”

— Official Roberta Flack Instagram account, on Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean’s performance at her funeral

The upshot: The choice of Hill and Wyclef was fitting — they had turned “Killing Me Softly” into a global anthem for a new generation in the 1990s. The performance closed a circle that Flack herself had opened.

How many husbands did Roberta Flack have?

Marriage to Stephen Novosel

• Roberta Flack was married once, to bassist Stephen Novosel, from 1966 until their divorce in 1972 (Rolling Stone).
• She did not remarry after the divorce, maintaining a private personal life for the remainder of her years.

Personal life and relationships

• Flack often spoke about the challenges of balancing family and a demanding music career, but she rarely elaborated on her private relationships in interviews.
• Her son Bernard Wright was born during her marriage to Novosel.

What this means: A single marriage that ended in 1972 — the same year her first number-one hit exploded — suggests Flack made a conscious choice early on to prioritize her art over public romantic partnership. She never looked back.

Roberta Flack’s life in timeline

• 1937 — Roberta Flack born in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
• 1969 — Debut album “First Take” released.
• 1972 — “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” reaches No. 1 on Billboard Hot 100.
• 1972 — Divorces first husband Stephen Novosel.
• 1973 — “Killing Me Softly with His Song” reaches No. 1.
• 2022 — Diagnosed with ALS; announces condition publicly (NPR).
• 2022 — Son Bernard Wright dies.
• 2025 — Dies at age 88 from complications of ALS (Recording Academy).

What we know and what remains unclear

Tributes and lasting impact

“She was one of the greatest singers of our time — a woman who could make you feel every word she sang.”

— Stevie Wonder, at Roberta Flack’s memorial service

“Roberta Flack’s music transcended genre. She was a classically trained pianist who brought jazz, soul, and folk together in a way nobody had done before.”

— Dionne Warwick, speaking to ABC News

For music lovers and historians alike, the decision is clear: stream the original recordings, read the liner notes, and understand that Flack’s quiet power was never about volume. It was about precision, feeling, and the courage to sing softly in a world that often shouts. For younger listeners discovering her through the Fugees cover or streaming algorithms, the invitation is the same — go back to “First Take,” listen to “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” without the movie scenes, and hear what 22-year-old Roberta Flack was already capable of. That’s the legacy, and it’s still playing.

The implication for her fans and for music history: Roberta Flack’s catalog will outlive the illness that silenced her. The question is whether new listeners will dig past the two big hits to find the full range of an artist who spent four decades refusing to be boxed in.

Fans around the world mourned the loss of a musical icon, with many turning to detailed retrospectives on Roberta Flacks death and legacy to celebrate her life.

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