Read Cher's 2024 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech

Less than one A year ago, Cher told Kelly Clarkson exactly what she thought of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “I wouldn’t be here right now if they gave me a million dollars,” she said. “I'm not kidding. I will never change my mind. You can just, you know, what yourself.”

Her anger was understandable. For all her success as a solo artist and as part of Sonny and Cher, she had never appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot before this year. But when voters decided this was finally her year, Cher reconsidered her position and decided to leave. “I will have a few words to say” she told Entertainment tonight. “I will accept it as me.”

However, her speech wasn't quite as inflammatory as one might expect, aside from a cheeky joke about how it's “easier to divorce two men” than to go to the Rock Hall. Cher thanked her longtime “guardian” David Geffen and credited her mother with teaching her to never give up. She oscillated between the humility of acknowledging that she was “extremely lucky” while facing extreme adversity while simultaneously declaring that she “changed the sound of music forever.”

During Cher's introductory speech, Zendaya said that the legendary singer and actress “does everything and does it really, really well.”

“Her voice is so unique that every song she sings becomes a Cher song,” Zendaya said. “She has moved through a variety of musical genres, defining new ones and reinventing others.”

Read Cher's speech below.

Thank you very much.

So this speech is going to be such a crapshoot. I'm not kidding, because I wrote it the other day and then I rewrote it tonight and I'm just like, “What the fuck.” I don't know what's going to happen, okay? It was easier to divorce two men than to get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I would like to thank my guardian David Geffen because he wrote a letter and sent it to the directors and so I am here. Thanks David. Thank you for caring about me so much.

Of course I'm here, but I want to tell you some stories from my life because I hope to make them small. When I was four years old I saw Cinderella and I knew that I wanted to be like that. I wanted to sing, and I wanted to make people happy, and I wanted to have fun, and I wanted to be famous. I don't know how a kid knows how to be famous, but I do. I had a crazy, amazing mother. She said to me, “You know, you may not be the prettiest, you may not be the smartest, you may not be the most talented, but you are special.”

And so my mother taught me over and over again because it was hard. I didn't do well in school. I just couldn't understand it. I couldn't read, I couldn't do any of it. But she said, “You know, when you're down and you're out, you get back up.” And in my life, I was so down. As my mother would say: deeper than a snake's belly. I was so depressed. People told me that I was done, that I was done and that I only had 10 minutes left. The one thing I think I got from my mom is that I never gave up. When Sunny and I broke up, nothing happened to me. I had a car and my clothes and had to go to Las Vegas.

At this point, Vegas was the graveyard of elephants. If you went there you had nothing. Now it's cool, everyone has a residency. But one night Francis Ford Coppola came to one of my shows, came backstage and said, “You know, you should be an actress.” And I said, “Okay!” He said, “Go to New York.” So I went to New York and happened to get a play, and from the play I got a movie with Meryl Streep.

Honestly, I believe what my mother said, but I'm lucky. Really bad things have happened to me. I was dropped by four labels. When it was all over, I did “Believe” and it was like, “Yeah!” I was just very lucky and had number one for seven decades, which surprises me because I'm a good singer, you know, I am a good singer. I'm not a great singer. You know what? I'll take it. And besides, I changed the sound of music forever, okay? And “believe” really changed the sound of the music.

It was an accident because my producer and I had a fight because he said, “Share, do better.” And “believe” was kind of a bitch in the beginning. It wasn't that good. So he said, “Do it better and do it better.” I said, “Dude, if you want it better, get another singer because I can't do it better.” And then he called me later that afternoon . He said, “Cher, I've been playing around with the pitch machine and I think I've figured something out.” So I went back, sat down and he started playing it. And it was like “Jesus.”

When it was over, we both jumped up and high-fived each other. It was so great. It was like a moment. And then the head of my record company, who I admire, said, “We can’t do that because no one knows it’s you.” I said, “Yeah, yeah. That's the deal. That's the great thing about it. You know?” That's the great thing about it. My life has been a roller coaster ride and the one thing I've never done is never give up. I never give up.

I talk to the women. I talk to women. You are on your own. We've been down and we've been down, and we keep striving, and we keep going, and we keep building, and we're somebody. We are special. As my mother would say: We are special. So I want to thank my family, Chaz, Elijah, my sister at home, my brother-in-law and my little friend, Baby Slash Electric, and Alexander. Goodnight and thank you very much.”