The 2026 BET Awards paid tribute to Clive Davis during its In Memoriam segment on Sunday, June 28, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. Erica Campbell and Le’Andria Johnson performed a medley of “I Love the Lord,” a Whitney Houston song that was among Davis’ favorites, honoring the music industry titan who died at his Manhattan home on June 22, 2026. He was 94.
Davis’ family confirmed he “passed away peacefully” from age-related illness, surrounded by the people he loved. He had recently been hospitalized for an upper respiratory infection before his death.
Following his death, tributes flooded in from artists across generations. Bruce Springsteen wrote that Davis “changed my life when he signed me to Columbia Records,” while Santana honored him as a “visionary.” Former President Barack Obama, speaking earlier this year, said most people don’t realize how much the music they love was shaped by one man.
From Brooklyn to Harvard to Columbia
Born April 4, 1932, in Brooklyn, New York, Clive Davis lost both parents while still a teenager. After earning a degree from New York University, he won a full scholarship to Harvard Law School. That legal training brought him to Columbia Records in 1960 as assistant counsel. By 1967, he had risen to the label’s presidency, steering it headlong into the rock era by signing Janis Joplin’s band Big Brother and the Holding Company, Santana, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Pink Floyd.
Fired from Columbia in 1973, Davis refused to recede. He founded Arista Records in 1974 and later launched J Records, building a second empire from scratch. The artists who passed through his hands read less like a roster and more like a history of popular music itself: Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Neil Diamond, Rod Stewart, Luther Vandross, Jermaine Jackson, Harry Connick Jr., Earth, Wind & Fire, The Grateful Dead, Notorious B.I.G., and Aretha Franklin, among dozens of others.
The Man With the Golden Ear
Davis revived flagging careers — including those of Dionne Warwick, Santana, and the Grateful Dead — and ignited new ones with equal fluency. He gave Barry Manilow his first #1 with “Mandy,” spotted Whitney Houston at 19 and signed her on the spot, and released Alicia Keys’ 2001 Grammy-winning debut album, “Songs in A Minor.” He also helped launch Christina Aguilera.
The industry nicknamed him “the Man with the Golden Ear.” When compact discs arrived in the 1980s, one running joke inside the business held that the format had been named after his initials — a measure of how fully Davis dominated the era.
Darker Chapters and Criticism
Davis’s career was not without its darker chapters. When Whitney Houston died at the Beverly Hilton hotel in 2012, Davis made the decision to continue with his celebrated annual pre-Grammy party at that same location on the same day — a choice that drew fierce criticism from Houston’s inner circle.
His ties to Sean “Diddy” Combs also drew scrutiny. Davis gave Combs payments totaling between $15 million and $50 million in the 1990s, when Combs was in his early 20s and building Bad Boy Records.
Personal Life and Final Years
Davis was famously guarded about his personal life, though he did reveal publicly at age 80 that he was bisexual. His two marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by three sons, Fred, Doug, and Mitchell, a daughter, Lauren, eight grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and his partner.
In a 2022 interview, Davis said he had found, by accident, a role for music in his life that became a natural part of him, and he realized he had a natural gift for discovering artists. Even deep into his 90s, he remained a presence at his annual pre-Grammy gala, scrutinizing each year’s lineup with the same intensity he had brought to scouting talent in the 1960s.
In a statement, the family said Davis left an indelible mark on culture by discovering, mentoring, and championing the greatest artists in modern music. The music he curated across that span — rock, soul, pop, hip-hop, and everything between — now plays as the unofficial soundtrack to the latter half of the 20th century and well into the 21st. His family said they would carry his love with them for the rest of their lives. The industry he transformed will carry his ear for much longer than that.