Cher Brutally Screws Up by Announcing Deceased Music Legend as Winner at 2026 Grammys
These people are seriously retarded.
This article originally appeared on the Daily Caller News Foundation and was republished with permission.
Guest post by Leena Nasir
Cher mistakenly announced the late Luther Vandross as the winner of the Record of the Year at Sunday’s Grammy Awards, in the night’s biggest fail.
The legendary singer awkwardly lingered onstage after accepting her Lifetime Achievement Award, walking away only to be called back moments later. Host Trevor Noah reminded her to present the next nominees, and the already cringey moment quickly deteriorated further. Rather than announcing Kendrick Lamar and SZA as the winners for their song ‘Luther,’ Cher proudly and confidently belted out that the award went to the iconic Luther Vandross – who died in 2005.
Cher appeared genuinely excited when she exclaimed, “Oh – and the Grammy goes to Luther Vandross!”
The crowd appeared dazed and confused by the epic fail, and the camera quickly panned away from the star and toward Lamar instead.
Lamar, still at his table at this point, looked confused by the bizarre fumble before realizing he had won. He eventually made his way to the stage with his entourage.
“No! Kendrick Lamar!” Cher shouted over top of the music. She remained on stage with a frozen smile on her face, waiting to hand-off the hardware.
Mustard, who had accompanied Lamar to the stage, immediately took the microphone and asked for a moment of silence for the late Vandross, who was the inspiration behind the song, offering Cher a moment of grace while she stood there, still smiling awkwardly.
Social media was quick to notice she froze in place, and didn’t shuffle off stage to allow Lamar and his team deliver their acceptance speech.
Cher seemed to take the major blunder in stride, but Noah didn’t let her off the hook quite as easily.
When it was his turn back on the mic to he cheekily said, “I love live TV,” as he pointed out the weird mishap.
Copyright 2026 Daily Caller News Foundation
Interesting breakdown of what went wrong. Live TV exposes the rawness of these moments in a way rehearsed content never could. I covered a few live events years back and the pressure of reading teleprompters or cue cards infront of thousands is intense. What stood out to me was how Mustard salvaged it by turning the gaffe into a tribute moment for Vandros.