Cher shares stage with Jennifer Hudson at 2024 iHeart Radio Awards

Even after all these years, it's not difficult to Believe what a force Cher is in the music business.

The 77-year-old pop star received the prized Icon Award on Monday night at the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Awards. She also performed on stage during the awards ceremony, which was hosted at Los Angeles' Dolby Theatre, and she was given a special homage.

Before Cher's musical performance, Meryl Streep, who co-starred with Cher in the 1984 film Silkwood, gave a tribute in honour of her friend.

"You know that Cher has had a No. 1 record in every one of the last seven decades She's the only woman in U.S. history to have done that. What does it take to have those kinds of legs, right? We all want to know. It's not 15 minutes of fame anymore. You're lucky to get seven seconds of somebody's fractured attention — never mind seven decades," she told the crowd.

Streep, 74, continued: "It takes a town, but more than that. I think it takes heart. When I think of Cher I think of her giant heart. how open it is, how battered it is and how strong it is and how she leads with her heart and everything she does interacting, singing, dancing or dressing. She just puts it all out there — and it's brought her lots of prestigious awards."

"But it's also pulled her to work on behalf of our veterans and for LGBTQ rights and many other causes when I first met her 40 years ago, when we made a film about an activist called [Karen] Silkwood. And in the movie really we held onto each other — we rocked on a porch swing in this little house in Sherman, Texas on an October night and I sang her a lullaby but all I could think of as we are going back and back [was] 'I Got You Babe,'" she concluded.

Following an on-screen homage to the Strong Enough artist, Jennifer Hudson took the stage and gave an electrifying performance of If I Could Turn Back Time. After that, Cher took the stage and began performing Believe alone until the 42-year-old Dreamgirls star joined her for a duet in the middle.

Cher went on stage to deliver a speech after the performance.

"First of all, I feel really blessed and lucky with this award, and I feel lucky to have people that have stayed with me for all these years. Most of you weren't born, but a lot of people have," she said.

Cher spoke to the crowd about her early aspirations before discussing how difficult it was for her to succeed as a musician.

"I don't usually talk about it, but I have been down and out so many times that you cannot believe," she said. "I've been dropped by my record companies and couldn't get a job and at that time. I went to Las Vegas, which they called the elephant's graveyard — and I had a huge show, lots of people, bungees, all that and they just said, 'Oh God, she's so over.' But I never gave up my dream and standing on this stage."

She continued: "From my experiences, have a dream, and then don't give it up no matter what happens. Because I know from my own experience that if you have a dream and you stick with it, you will have a wonderful life and it probably will come true. And that's it for me."