Cher kicked off Saturday night’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony by accepting her long-overdue induction while crediting her mother with inspiring her to never quit.
“It was easier getting divorced from two men than it was to get into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” she joked at the beginning of her speech. “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. So anyway thank you David, thank you for caring so much about me.”
She then acknowledged the self-reliance her mother instilled in her as a young girl, even as she struggled with her school work. “[She taught me] If you’re down and you’re out, you get up again. And in my life I’ve been so down, like as my mother would say, lower than a snake’s belly, OK, that’s how down I’ve been. People have told me that I’m finished and that I was through, I have 10 minutes [left]. The one thing I got from my mom is that I never gave up.”
Prior to her induction, Cher kicked off the Rock Hall ceremony by joining pop star Dua Lipa for a performance of her 1998 hit “Believe.”
The actress Zendaya, wearing a daring Bob Mackie-style dress as a tribute to the honoree, started her induction speech by asking, “Where do I even begin? 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.”
After Zendaya’s speech, Cher retook the stage to perform her 1989 smash “If I Could Turn Back Time” with help from Trans-Siberian Orchestra / Whitesnake guitarist Joel Hokestra.
Although Cher entered the Rock Hall on her first nomination, that nomination was decades overdue. The “Goddess of Pop” made her recording debut in 1965 and scored a No. 1 hit the same year with the Sonny & Cher ballad “I Got You Babe.” She’s won a Grammy, an Emmy and an Oscar, and she receive the Kennedy Center Honors in 2018.
Cher has not minced words about her disdain for the Rock Hall in the past. The superstar noted during a December 2023 appearance on The Kelly Clarkson show that she’s one of only two acts to have earned No. 1 hits in seven different decades and yet, the Hall still hadn’t acknowledged her achievements at the time.
“It took four of them to be one of me … [it’s] the Rolling Stones and me,” Cher said. “And I’m not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. You know what, I wouldn’t be in it now if they gave me a million dollars. I’m not kidding you, I was about to say I’m not shitting you. I’m never changing my mind. They can just go you-know-what-themselves.”
Ozzy Osbourne Foreigner Join Cher for 2024 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class
Ozzy Osbourne, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, the Dave Matthews Band, Mary J. Blige, A Tribe Called Quest and Kool & the Gang join Cher as inductees in the performer category at this year’s Rock Hall induction. MC5, Jimmy Buffett, Dionne Warwick and Norman Whitfield will receive the Musical Excellence award.
145 Artists Not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Many have shared their thoughts on possible induction.
Gallery Credit: Ultimate Classic Rock Staff