Cher has truly thrown down the gauntlet, saying that there are “20-year-old girls who can’t do what I do.”

In a wide-ranging interview with The Guardian, Cher called out any youthful pretenders to her throne after the subject of Botox inevitably arose.

Despite having had her fair share of cosmetic surgery through the years, the singer said that she didn’t understand teenage girls wanting to inject Botox in their lips and elsewhere.

After being asked by the interviewer if she herself had “normalised” having work done, Cher was having none of it. She asked: “Wait, what? You say I made it OK for what?” The interview then explained: “For normal people, regular civilians, to have cosmetic surgery?”, to which she replied: “These girls are having surgery at 18. So come on! I’ve never seen girls do so much to want to change everything they look like. I never wanted to do that. You’ve got big lips to start with and a big butt. I don’t understand it.”

The music icon may be a sprightly 74 now but by the sounds of it she doesn’t fear any new upstarts. She insisted that her looks have nothing to do with success in the music industry. When pressed if she thinks her lengthy career could have been a result of her perennially youthful appearance, Cher stated: ““You don’t pay bucks to stand and look at someone. They’ve got to deliver something.”

While one of pop’s most enduring stars may get tired – she’s only human after all – Cher said that her voice is better than it’s ever been. “And I’ve worked my whole life to keep my strength in my body. There are 20-year-old girls who can’t do what I do.”

Cher also shockingly revealed in the interview that a fan almost murdered her: “I had a man try to kill me. I always got dropped off at the stage door when I was doing Come Back To the Five and Dime on Broadway.
I thought he was going to shake my hand, and he grabbed my arm and put it behind my back. He started pushing me down the alleyway, and he said: ‘If you make a sound, I’ll kill you.’ Two fans, who later became friends, saw something was wrong, and they started screaming and ran towards me, and he ran away.”

Check out the iconic ‘Believe’ by Cher:

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