She sang at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993 and at the wedding of Vice President Al Gore's eldest daughter, Karenna, in 1997. For her contributions to the American cultural heritage, Franklin was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1999 by the National Endowment for the Arts. Despite all of her awesome accomplishments, Franklin has harbored a fear of flying for many years. She declared to Waldron in Jet that she may be close to overcoming it, telling him that she has tried listening to anti-anxiety tapes and attending classes. She remarked, "I'm not going to jet off tomorrow, but I am expecting to soon. All things in time." She mentioned to Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds in Interview in 1994 that she travels by custom bus, which has "cooking facilities, movies, fax, phones, and a fun driver." She commented, however, to Christopher John Farley in Time in 1998 that nothing had worked to conquer the phobia, so she still enjoys the bus. "You can pull over, go to Red Lobster," in the bus, she explained. "You can't pull over at 35,000 feet."

Franklin never let her flying phobia or anything else get in the way of her continuing success, though. Toward the mid- to late-1990s, she began branching out into several directions, giving no indication of settling down and letting her past describe her. In 1995, it was announced that she signed a $1.2 million deal with Villard Books to write her autobiography with David Ritz, and she promised it would be juicy. "My tongue will be smoking when I get through," she jokingly told Clarence Waldron in Jet, adding that some things will remain private. She told Brian McCollum in the Detroit Free Press that it is "time to correct any inaccuracies." Also in the works were plans for a cooking video; she collected recipes from family and friends for the effort. Also in the 1990s, Franklin started up her own film production company, Crown Productions, and in 1997, Jet reported that she optioned Jesse Jackson's autobiography, A Time to Speak: The Autobiography of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, for a television movie for which she will serve as executive producer and coproducer. Jet also noted that she made plans for a documentary on her late father as well as a full-length feature on herself. Franklin was accepted to the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City in 1997 to study classical piano, and in 1998 she reprised her popular role as a restaurant owner from the 1980 Blues Brothers movie in the comedy Blues Brothers 2000. For the film, she recorded yet another version of her theme song, "Respect," which she insists she never tires of performing.