A New Documentary Reveals How 2012 Grammy Producers Were Able To Pull Together A Last-Minute Tribute To Whitney Houston
Last year, nearly 40 million people tuned into the 2012 Grammy Awards show, making it the most-watched Grammy Awards show in the last 30 years. And, a large majority of those people tuned in to see how the producers of the 54th Grammy Awards would handle the tragic death of Whitney Houston. Houston died just one day before the Grammy Awards were held, which gave the producers of the show very little time to pull off a tribute to her. But, they managed to do it by enlisting host LL Cool J to open up the show with a prayer and by calling on Jennifer Hudson to pay homage to Houston by singing her classic song, "I Will Always Love You."
It definitely wasn't easy to pull the tribute together, though. Yesterday, the Grammy producers and LL Cool J teamed up to hold a press conference to talk about this year's Grammy Awards. And, during the press conference, they addressed the unique challenge that they were faced with last year.
"The difficult balance that we had to strike was giving all these artists—all of these amazing artists—their just due on that day," LL said. "They were scheduled to perform. They needed to have a great night, but at the same time, we wanted the show to pay homage to Whitney and what she's contributed to us. So, that was the fine line."
It was a difficult task, but they pulled it off. So, how exactly did they manage to do it? Well, a new documentary about last year's show will air on February 9, just one day before the 2012 Grammy Awards, that will peel back the curtain and reveal how the tribute to Houston came together.
"I don't want to say it unmasks everything, but it does take a look at everything you don't get to see," Grammy Awards executive producer Ken Ehrlich said. "All of the footage came in after the fact. We didn't mean to do this ahead of time."
Be sure to watch the documentary on February 9 before tuning into the 55th Grammy Awards on February 10. It should be epic.
