Cher Rips Into Miley Cyrus’ VMA Performance

Cher appeared on CBS’ Sunday Morning show to talk about Closer to Truth, her first new studio album in more than a decade. While she was there, she had some cutting words to say regarding Miley Cyrus and the younger star’s recent twerking antics.

In a web-extra conversation that touched on her own history of provocation and her admiration for Lady Gaga’s meat dress (“I was just so struck with how beautifully it was tailored”), Cher drew the line at Cyrus’ controversial performance at the MTV Music Video Awards. “If she’d come out naked, and it was beautifully done, I would have said, ‘You go, girl,'” Cher explained. “I don’t care about that. I just don’t like to see things done badly.”

Asked to elaborate, Cher went on to list the aspects that fell short of her regard: “I just thought all of it was terrible. Outfit, terrible. Dancing, terrible. Singing, average. Performance, terrible. If she’d just come out there and kicked ass, even though I don’t think that I would have loved it, I would have respected it, and I would have appreciated it. That whole area that she was in was not something that I would gravitate to myself, but I would have thought, ‘Boy, you did that. I give you props.'”

Cher offered a similarly bruising assessment in an interview with USA Today, telling the publication, “She can’t dance, her body looked like hell, the song wasn’t great, one cheek was hanging out. And, chick, don’t stick out your tongue if it’s coated.” But she apparently regretted her candor, and took to Twitter the next day to say that she was ashamed of herself for not supporting a fellow artist. “This is not an apology 4 what I thought,” she added. “It’s a reminder, that if I don’t practice my principles, I loose them.”