The spirit of the late ‘90s was alive and well at the Billboard Music Awards on Sunday night.
Shortly after Celine Dion sang her 1997 hit “My Heart Will Go On,” Cher killed it onstage with her 1998 No. 1 song “Believe.” She then turned back time to 1989, performing “If I Could Turn Back Time,” in a similar outfit to the one she wore in her legendary music video filmed aboard the USS Missouri.
Everyone was taken with Cher’s performance, even Dion:
After her two powerhouse performances, Cher was presented with the Icon Award by Gwen Stefani.
“So, I’ve wanted to do what I do since I was 4 years old, and I’ve been doing it for 53 years,” Cher said as the crowd broke out in applause. “That’s not an applause thing. I’m 71 yesterday. And I can do a 5-minute plank. OK? Just saying.”
She continued, “I want to thank my mom. When I was really young my mom said, ‘You’re not going to be the smartest, you’re not going to be the prettiest. You’re not going to be the most talented. But you’re going to be special. And then when I met Sonny [Bono], he said the same thing. And there was really nothing about me that lead anyone [else] to believe that I was going to be special.”
Cher wrapped up her speech by crediting a lot of her success to plain old luck.
“I work with people you might not know, but they are like the greatest people in our industry,” she told the crowd. “And I just have to say I think luck has so much to do with my success. I think it was mostly luck and a little bit of something thrown in.”
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