Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty ImagesA television special, featuring highlights from the 41st Annual Kennedy Center Honors, aired Wednesday night on CBS, and Cher was among the artists honored. The event took place in Washington, D.C. in early December.
Cher, the final honoree of the night, was introduced by comedienne and host of ABC’s The View, Whoopi Goldberg, who hailed the activist, actress and pop diva as someone who can do it all.
“She’s been a teenage pop star, a TV variety show host, a model, a rock star, a pop star, a disco diva, Broadway actor, activist, movie star,” said Goldberg, adding, “She not only marches to the beat of her own drum — honey, she is a one-woman band.”
Country group Little Big Town then took to the stage to perform two of Cher’s solo hits: “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” and “I Found Someone,” followed by “Baby Don’t Go” — the 1964 hit she recorded with her former husband and partner Sonny Bono.
Cher’s Mama Mia! Here We Go Again co-star Amanda Seyfried continued the tribute, focusing her speech on the entertainer’s work as an activist, noting, “She’s used the enormous power of her voice to speak out on issues that need to be heard, like human rights issues, AIDS research and causes close to our LGBTQ community, which is…so cool.”
The musical tributes continued with Adam Lambert delivering a slow, soulful rendition of Cher’s 1998 hit, “Believe.”
Cyndi Lauper, who opened for Cher on her 1999 Believe tour, as well as her Dressed to Kill outing in 2014, covered the 1989 hit, “If I Could Turn Back Time.” Lauper and Lambert closed out the show with another Sonny & Cher classic, “I Got You Babe.”
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