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25 of Cher’s most iconic moments

Welcome to Cher 101.

By Will Stroude

As she demonstrates with every twitch of her tweeting finger, Cher is a bona fide living legend.

With a scene-stealing appearance in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and her newly-released album of ABBA cover, Dancing Queen, looking set to be her biggest album in years, 2018 is truly the year of the Cher-naissance. 

Of course, the Grammy, Emmy and Oscar-winning star has six decades of her experience when it comes to creating iconic pop culture events – but the younger among us might be lacking a proper Cher education.

So as the immortal diva celebrates her 75th birthday this week (20 May), we thought we’d create the ultimate beginner’s guide to Cher’s most iconic moments. Let class commence…

1) Appearing on Top of the Pops in black and white.

2) Looking smokin’ hot in this performance of ‘Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves’.

3) Dismissing men as the unnecessary ‘dessert’ of humanity.

4) Attempting to go unnoticed in a Jackson 5 medley back in the day.

5) Correctly predicting exactly what her ‘older’ self would look like in this sketch with Bette Midler and Elton John (no really, it’s uncanny).

6) This emo performance of ‘Dark Lady’ (eat your heart out, Lana!)

7) This family portrait.

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8) Winning an Emmy for playing every character in a scaled-down TV performance of West Side Story (yes, this actually happened).

9) Winning an Academy Award for this performance in Moonstruck.

10) Wearing this to the ceremony.

11) The song and video for 1989’s ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ (thank you Diane Warren, thank you sailors).

12) Parodying the song and the slap in this Will and Grace scene.

13) Giving her two cents on Madonna to Wogan.

14) This quote from Mermaids.

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15) Delivering this immortal line/song/auto-tune to popular culture.

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16) Smashing some bitch’s car window with a crowbar in Burlesque (a film she’s never watched, btw).

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17) Holding Lady Gaga’s meat purse while wearing her Turn Back Time outfit.

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18) This incredible video from impersonator Charlie Hides (which she loves).

19) This newspaper wig from the Woman’s World video.

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20) Her Twitter response to Madonna’s album title.

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21) Her Twitter response to being told to rein-in her emoji use.

22) You know what, just all her tweets.

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23) Not that she really cares what you think.

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24) Becoming the first ever recipient of an Attitude Legend Award (naturally).

25) This immortal line.

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Long live the Queen!