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On Sunday, September 14, the Emmy Awards honored the 40th anniversary of the first episode of the beloved comedy series The Golden Girls with a performance of their iconic theme song. The performance was put on by Reba McEntire<\/strong> and Little Big Town<\/strong> duo Karen Fairchild<\/strong> and Kimberly Schlapman<\/strong>. While the crowd loved it, with several celebrities spotted gleefully singing along, there was one crucial misstep the award ceremony made.<\/p>\n They forgot to call the original singer, Cynthia Fee<\/strong>, to perform. As the last living “fifth Golden Girl,” Fee<\/strong> playfully took to TikTok to call them out for not including her.<\/p>\n \u201cHi there. I’m Cindy Fee<\/strong>, the singer of Thank You for Being a Friend from The Golden Girls. Now, y’all know I love Cher<\/strong>, love Reba<\/strong>, and the ladies of Little Big Town<\/strong>. But I want you to know that I’m still here. And as the last remaining Golden Girl, I can still sing.\u201d<\/p>\n She then promptly belted out a line from the song, proving her point. Fans loved the subtly sassy call-out and agreed she should have been on that stage.<\/p>\n “They missed a golden moment. You should’ve been there,” a fan acknowledged.<\/p>\n “What a missed opportunity they had to have you sing on stage,” called out another.<\/p>\n “Thank you for that song. It\u2019s been the soundtrack to so many parts of my life,” sweetly noted another.<\/p>\n Related: Reba McEntire and Little Big Town Honor ‘Golden Girls’ 40th Anniversary at the Emmys<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Her recognizable voice got its start at the age of 16<\/a>, when she began singing at local Kansas City establishments. Fee<\/strong> has done a litany of jingle and TV commercial work, promoting several brands such as Hoover vacuums, Wheaties cereal, Chevy, McDonald\u2019s, and more.<\/p>\n She also worked with country legend Kenny Rogers<\/strong> on the duet \u201cI Don\u2019t Want to Know Why\u201d from the platinum-selling album What About Me?. She went on to work with him again on his Christmas album, and also spent time as a backup singer for Whitney Houston<\/strong>, Garth Brooks<\/strong>, Dolly Parton<\/strong>, and Lionel Richie<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Related: \u2018Golden Girls\u2019 Writer Reveals the Risqu\u00e9 Line Censors Let Slide 40 Years Ago<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The familiar tune was penned by singer-songwriter and producer Andrew Gold<\/strong> in 1978. A frequent Linda Ronstadt<\/strong> collaborator, the song only took him about an hour to write. Gold<\/strong> famously said it was “just this little throwaway thing,” but it ended up peaking at No. 25 on the Billboard charts<\/a> the year it was released.<\/p>\n “They called me up and said they wanted to use this song ‘Thank You for Being a Friend,’ recorded it in a simple version they just did with the studio with this singer for this show called The Golden Girls. It was no big thing, and then I came back three or four months later and the show was out, and the song was top 10.”<\/p>\n The song has since been reimagined and parodied several times, with a legacy that has endured as much as the iconic TV show it represented.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac <\/strong>SIGN UP for Parade\u2019s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a> \ud83c\udfac<\/strong><\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Sep 19, 2025, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Sunday, September 14, the Emmy Awards honored the 40th anniversary of the first episode of the beloved comedy series The Golden Girls with a performance of their iconic theme song. The performance was put on by Reba McEntire and Little Big Town duo Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman. While the crowd loved it, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2038525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[376739,376738,352435,376740,376741,368673,42840,367579],"class_list":["post-2038524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-cindy-fee","tag-cynthia-fee","tag-golden-girls","tag-iconic-theme-song","tag-kimberly-schlapman","tag-little-big-town","tag-reba-mcentire","tag-the-performance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/The-Last-Remaining-Golden-Girl-Playfully-Calls-Out-the-Emmys.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2038524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2038524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2038525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2038524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2038524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2038524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More About Cynthia Fee<\/h2>\n
Who Wrote the Golden Girls\u2019 Iconic Theme Song?<\/h2>\n