Daily Dad News

Don Cornelius’ Son Says His Father Worked ‘Really Hard’ On Soul Train

February 2, 2012

As the news of Soul Train creator Don Cornelius’ death rippled through the entertainment world, some pondered on how the family of the famed host are dealing with the tragedy.  This morning, the son of the smooth, baritone-voiced Cornelius has stepped forward to address the news.

Tony Cornelius granted an interview to daytime program “CBS This Morning” to speak about his father, clearly grieving and just as stunned as the rest of the nation after news leaked that Don took his own life. Bravely speaking with the same reserved cool possess by his father, Tony Cornelius did well in articulating what his father meant to him, and the legacy that he left behind by way of the innovative Soul Train television program.=

“My father was extremely private and unfortunately, when you're a private person, you keep things inside," Cornelius said to Gayle King on "CBS This Morning." "You know, it's hard to imagine that you would – how you feel. You have to be in a person's shoes really to understand. Obviously, me being extremely close to him, I could tell that he was uncomfortable. But our family could never know that he would – how uncomfortable he really was.”

When asked what his father left behind for him, Tony Cornelius found the just the right words to explain what working alongside his dad for 15 years meant to him.

“I mean, he's always taught me about it's the fine points that count and he wanted to achieve quality. He wanted to expose the masses to a new way of looking at black-oriented television. And he just worked really hard to make that happen,” said Tony Cornelius.

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