Watch Gladys Knight Smile as She Takes Apart Each of Don Lemon’s SJW Questions

If you’d forgotten how great Gladys Knight was, Super Bowl Sunday was a reminder of why she’s known as the “Empress of Soul” — and you don’t get royal monikers without earning them.

It wasn’t just that the Atlanta-based R&B legend was singing the national anthem. It was she nailed it, absolutely nailed it. I may be suffering from a bit of recency bias, but I’d easily put it in the top five of Super Bowl album renditions. It wasn’t Whitney Houston in 1991 or Jennifer Hudson in 2009 — but for me, anyhow, it was close.

Sadly, even singing the national anthem is a political statement in a Super Bowl where every major performer was asked by protesters to stay away due to the fact Colin Kaepernick isn’t in the league. We could debate the merits of Kaepernick’s absence from the NFL endlessly, but the idea that every musician of note should boycott the game is a rather farcical request.

Knight had already been less apologetic and dithering than halftime headliner Maroon 5, which made her even more of a target for social justice warriors to take out their Kaepernick-related frustrations on musicians. On Friday night, she appeared on “CNN Tonight” with host Don Lemon to explain her reasoning, and it was almost as good as her version of the anthem on Sunday.

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