Cher was one of the inductees at last night’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony, and Dua Lipa came along for the ride. Below, watch them do “Believe” together, joined by the Roots, along with Cher’s induction speech—introduced by Zendaya—and performance of “If I Could Turn Back Time.”
“Where do I even begin?” Zendaya started her speech. “There is not one person in this room, in this country and pretty much in the whole world who doesn’t know who I’m here to honor tonight. So iconic, she only needs one name….. She does it all and, may I add, really fucking well.”
In her own speech, Cher joked about her overdue induction, having said last year that she would refuse the honor were it offered. “It was easier getting divorced from two men than it was to get into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” she said last night. “I want to thank my guardian David Geffen, because yeah, he wrote a letter and sent it to the directors and so… ha ha, here I am.” She later added, “The one thing I have never done, is I never give up,” she explained. “And I am talking to the women, okay.… we have been down and out, but we keep striving, and we keep going and we are somebody. We are special.”
Cher came to prominence in 1965, as half of the folk-rock duo Sonny and Cher with then-husband Sonny Bono, and soon released the solo singles “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” and “You Better Sit Down Kids.” The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, which ran for three seasons between 1971 and 1974, made Cher a television personality as well. She and Bono had one child together—Chaz, in 1969—and divorced in 1975.
In the ’70s, Cher scored three number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100—“Gypsys, Tramps, and Thieves,” “Half-Breed,” and “Dark Lady”—becoming the female solo artist with the most No. 1 singles in U.S. history. She pivoted to disco with 1979’s Take Me Home, then to acting in the mid-80s, winning an Academy Award for her leading role opposite Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck.
Cher has the unique distinction of being the only solo artist to date with Billboard No. 1 singles in seven consecutive decades, from the 1960s through the 2020s. Released in 1998, “Believe”—one of the best songs of the 1990s—was the best-selling single of all time in the UK by a female artist, popularizing the use of AutoTune. Cher has remained in the public consciousness: starring in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in 2018, performing at this year’s Victoria’s Secret fashion show, and often going viral for her delightful Twitter/X posts.