Aretha Franklin Says a Little Prayer at Bill & Bryan's Wedding

Aretha Franklin sang at the wedding of former Intrepid Museum director Bill White and longtime partner Bryan Eure for 700 A-list guests at the Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan Sunday night. Paid $250,000 to perform for 15 minutes, the Queen of Soul stayed on stage an hour, sweating out Respect, Chain of Fools, I Say a Little Prayer, selections from her new cd, and Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You, in a room kept at 86 degrees, for her voice. Guests included Barbara Walters, Christine Quinn, Clive Davis, Joel Grey, David Paterson, David Dinkins, David Boies, Karolina Kurkova, Gayle King, and MSNBC's openly gay Thomas Roberts who admits he "over-celebrated" and was thrown out by security. That's a party. The entrance was flanked by 40 members of the Navy Junior ROTC. That's a honeymoon. The happy couple, 12 years apart, met on AOL and maintained a long-distance relationship.