DONALD Trump was told to show some RESPECT at the funeral for Aretha Franklin after he controversially claimed the Queen of Soul "used to work" for him.

Close friends of the legend hit back at the US President after he spoke out hours after the music star died of cancer on August 16 aged 76.

“I want to begin today by expressing my condolences to the family of a person I knew well. She worked for me on numerous occasions,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting.

Labelled an "orange aberration" and a "leech" by Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at George Town University, Trump was again blasted by Reverend Al Sharpton, a prominent civil rights activist.

He received a standing ovation for demanding the outspoken Republican show respect - a reference to her song - before adding "She used to perform for you. She worked for us. Aretha never took orders from nobody but God.”

Sharpton took to the pulpit to laud the singer for providing the soundtrack of the movement, with songs such as her signature 1967 hit "Respect".

"She was a black woman in a white man's world," he said, as mourners cheered.

"She was rooted in the black church, she was bathed in the black church, and she took the black church downtown and made folks that didn't know what the Holy Ghost was shout in the middle of a concert."

Stevie Wonder also took a moment out of his speech to make a jibe at Trump, urging the US to "make love great again" because "all lives do matter."

The star was recalled as both an American institution, who sang at the presidential inaugurations of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Rev Jesse Jackson, who worked alongside Martin Luther King during the 1960s, urged attendees to honour her memory and register to vote.

Aretha, who was herself heavily involved in campaigning against racial prejudice throughout her six decade career.

Jackson and his fellow campaigner Sharpton were onstage to honour Franklin's contributions to black empowerment.

They sahred front-row seats with Louis Farrakhan, the black nationalist and Nation of Islam leader.

Former US President Bill Clinton described himself as an Aretha Franklin "groupie," saying he had loved her since college.

He traced her life's journey, praising her as someone who "lived with courage, not without fear, but overcoming her fears".

He remembered attending her last public performance, at Elton John's AIDS Foundation benefit in November in New York.

She looked "desperately ill" but managed to greet him by standing and saying, "How you doing, baby?"

Her career, Clinton noted, spanned from vinyl records to cellphones.

He held the microphone near his iPhone and played a snippet of Franklin's classic "Think," the audience clapping along. "It's the key to freedom!" Clinton said.

Aretha's body earlier arrived to the star-studded eight-hour memorial in a 1940 Cadillac LaSalle hearse.

She wore a shimmering gold dress, with sequined heels the fourth outfit the legend was clothed in during a week of events leading up to her funeral.