LGBTQ

Cher thanks Betty White ‘for being a friend’ with emotional Golden Girls theme song cover

Cher on the Betty White television special. (NBC)

Cher thanked the late Betty White for being a friend as she covered The Golden Girls‘ theme song in a touching television tribute.

With a glistening seven-decade-long career, White, who played the sweet but scatterbrained Rose Nylund on the iconic NBC series, captured the hearts of countless viewers with her love of life and pathbreaking attitudes.

The Emmy, Grammy and SAG Award winner passed away only weeks before her 100th birthday after suffering a stroke in Los Angeles, California.

Cher: ‘Thank you for being a friend’

Celebrating Betty White: America’s Golden Girl will see Cher give a performance of “Thank You For Being a Friend” on the original Golden Girls Stage Five in Hollywood, where the long-running show was taped.

“Every friend is golden,” Cher tweeted while sharing a high-energy sneak preview from her performance.

“This Was A [great] Honour For Me,” the legendary singer added. “I’ve loved Betty Since I Was seven, and Change.”

Cher said that she grew up watching Life With Elizabeth, a low-budget sitcom that aired in the 1950s that was one of White’s earliest performances. She starred as suburban homemaker Elizabeth who, with a devilish grin, would often get into shenanigans with her husband Alvin (Del Moore).

“PLUS WE DID [‘Thank You For Being a Friend’] on [The Sonny & Cher Show],” Cher added. “Betty Taught Me To Speak Like A Southern  🔔.”

Cher had hinted hours before that she was involved with the special, having not exactly cryptically tweeted “thank you for being a friend” and “it’s coming“.

The warming track, originally written and recorded in 1978 by Andrew Gold, was later covered by Cynthia Fee, becoming the memorable theme song to the Golden Girls and lifelong earworm.

Cher’s nearly four million followers were left in tears at the 75-year-old’s spirited salute to White. With dedicated fans and even LGBT+ media watchdog GLAAD praising her.

It’s difficult to compress White’s career into a single sentence, but she was perhaps best known as Nylund across seven seasons of Golden Girls, which revolved around the lives of four older women house-sharing in Miami, Florida.

On Thursday (27 January), NBC announced a special telecast that will see US president Joe Biden be joined by a constellation of celebrity talent, from Drew Barrymore and Ellen DeGeneres to Joel McHale and Jay Leno, among many more.

Airing Monday evening on NBC, and available to stream on Peacock the day after, the special will feature never-before-seen footage that captures White’s sharp-witted humour and generation-spanning career.

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