Forty years after they shared the screen in The Color Purple, Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey reunited at the 2025 Oscars to honor late music legend Quincy Jones.
Winfrey and Goldberg, who both received Oscar nominations for their roles in the 1985 Steven Spielberg film, paid tribute to Jones for bringing the music in the period drama to life.
Jones, a prolific songwriter, composer and producer, died in November at age 91.
The film academy recognized him in November at the Governors Awards, where he was posthumously given an honorary Oscar, just two weeks after he died.
Now it was time for Jones to be celebrated on the main Oscars stage at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
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“When we talk about Black excellence, we talk about Quincy” – Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey pay tribute to Quincy Jones at the #Oscars pic.twitter.com/eu9MMxHp6e
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) March 3, 2025
Dressed in a black tuxedo-style jacket, with a white blouse, sparkling black necktie and a matching embellished black skirt, Winfrey, 71, referred to Jones as a “genius.”
“When one hears the name Quincy Jones, one’s first thought is musical genius, and for good reason — 28 Grammy Awards, arranger and conductor for legends like Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Ray Charles,” she said. “Our beloved Q had an equally powerful impact on the world of film as a composer and producer.”
“When we talk about Black excellence, we’re talking about Quincy. In 1967, Quincy Jones was the first Black composer nominated in the original song category for ‘The Eyes of Love’ in the film Banning,” Goldberg added.
The View host, 69, wore a futuristic metallic ballgown and showed off a slimmed-down figure. Goldberg said in an interview last year that she’d “lost almost two people” after turning to a weight-loss drug.
On Sunday, fashion designer Christian Siriano praised Goldberg’s Oscars look, and wrote on Instagram that she was wearing one of his designs “right off the runway.”
After their remarks on stage, Oprah and Whoopi introduced Oscar-nominated Chicago star Queen Latifah, who performed “Ease on Down the Road,” which Quincy Jones produced for The Wiz.
Over his lifetime, Jones received Oscar nominations for the music in Banning (1967), In Cold Blood (1967), For Love of Ivy (1968), The Wiz (1978), and The Color Purple (1985).
Whoopi has a long history with the Oscars herself, after hosting the awards multiple times, and winning the best supporting actress statuette for Ghost in 1991.
Oprah has been nominated twice — once in the best supporting actress category for The Color Purple, and the second time for co-producing Selma.
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