Queen Latifah Set to Host 2025 Kennedy Center Honors

Queen Latifah, who was a 2023 Kennedy Center Honors recipient, is set to host the 2024 ceremony, which will be taped on Sunday, Dec. 8, and will air on CBS two weeks later on Dec. 22. It is Latifah’s first time as host.

She joins a short list of previous or future Kennedy Center Honorees who have hosted the show, including Leonard Bernstein, Gene Kelly (he closed the 1979 ceremony), Beverly Sills, David Letterman, Gloria Estefan and LL Cool J.

As previously announced, recipients to be honored on the Kennedy Center Opera House stage in Washington, D.C., are director and filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola; legendary American rock band the Grateful Dead (Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, the late Phil Lesh, Bobby Weir); singer-songwriter and guitarist Bonnie Raitt; jazz trumpeter, pianist and composer Arturo Sandoval; and The Apollo, which will receive a special Honors as an iconic American institution.

The 47th Annual Kennedy Center Honors will be produced by Done+Dusted for a third year, in association with ROK Productions. The event will be executive produced by David Jammy, Elizabeth Kelly and Jack Sussman. Alex Rudzinski will direct.

Latifah was honored last year alongside Billy Crystal, Renée Fleming, Barry Gibb and Dionne Warwick.

The 47th Annual Kennedy Center Honors are set to be broadcast Sunday, Dec. 22 from 8:30-11:00 p.m., ET/PT on CBS and streaming on Paramount+ (live and on-demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers, or on-demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the special airs).