Cher Turns Back Time on Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Slam, Warns She’ll ‘Have Some Words to Say’ At Induction
Never say never. Back in December, before she was announced as one of this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees, Cher had some choice words for the Cleveland-based museum that, at that point, had not deigned her worthy of inclusion despite her record of scoring No. 1 hits over seven decades.
To put it mildly the 77-year-old pop wonder told Kelly Clarkson that she was not interested, not even if the RRHOF “gave me a million dollars… I’m never going to change my mind. They can just you-know-what themselves.”
Well, now that she is preparing to enter the HOF alongside Mary J. Blige, Ozzy Osbourne, Foreigner, A Tribe Called Quest, Kool & the Gang, the Dave Matthews Band and Peter Frampton on Oct. 19 in Cleveland, you better believe she’s had a change of heart.
According to ET, while walking the red carpet at the Paley Center in L.A. for the premiere of the documentary Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion — about the fashion designer who has made so many of the singer’s glitter-dripping costumes over the years — Cher said she was grateful for her pending induction.
She thanked longtime friend and one-time paramour former music executive David Geffen and RRHOF Foundation chairman John Sykes for the honor and, in her inimitable way, warned that she will not go quietly into that very good night.
“I’m going to have some words to say,” Cher promised. “I’m going to accept it as me.”
Cher’s first No. 1 hit was 1965’s “I Got You Babe” with late partner Sonny Bono and she had been eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame since 1991.
Gil Kaufman
Billboard