Cher inadvertently brought the Grammy Awards to a chaotic conclusion when she mistakenly announced the late Luther Vandross as the winner of a prize intended for Kendrick Lamar.

Kendrick Lamar, who topped the evening’s nominations with nine nods, clinched the Record of the Year award alongside SZA for their hit single “Luther.”

However, while presenting this prestigious accolade, Cher, at 79, inadvertently turned the spotlight on herself with a memorable gaffe that left the audience in stitches.

She began with, “And the Grammy goes to…,” pausing awkwardly before chuckling and admitting, “Oh! They told me it was gonna be on the prompter.”

Realizing she needed to reveal the winner from the envelope she held, Cher enthusiastically declared the victor as “Luther Gandross [sic]!”

Kendrick Lamar, 38, chuckled at the mix-up involving Vandross, who passed away two decades ago, but gracefully acknowledged Cher’s slip and took to the stage to accept his award.

Cher did eventually realize her mistake and manage to crow: ‘Oh, no, Kendrick Lamar!’ and laughing at her mistake during Lamar and SZA’s play-on music.

Fans erupted in hilarity online, cackling: ‘Cher high as hell man,’ ‘Luther Vandross got me hooting and hollering,’ ‘Luther Vandross had me so weak. Cher had me lmfao,’ and: ‘Lord Cher just found out Luther vandross passed away today lmaooo.’ 

Cher’s whole onstage appearance had been a chaotic affair, as she took the stage to present record of the year only to be interrupted by host Trevor Noah so that he could give her a lifetime achievement award first.

She then delivered her touching, prepared speech encouraging viewers never to relinquish their dreams, only to end by awkwardly saying: ‘Thank you. I guess I’m supposed to walk off now. All right.’

Cher strolled offstage to an explosive chorus of audience applause and then strolled right back onstage immediately to launch into her record of the year fiasco. 

The awards show was full of memorable moments, starting right from Trevor Noah’s opening monologue, which triggered rumors of a feud with Justin Bieber.

Bieber went viral for putting on a forced, tight smile when Noah tried to banter with him and his wife Hailey at his table – and even cringing at one of his jokes.

After congratulating Justin on his nominations and the birth of his now one-year-old son Jack Blues, Noah rattled through a bit of material, and although Hailey laughed politely along, Justin neglected to muster even a chuckle. 

Then Noah delivered his final punchline at that table, asking Hailey if he could get a ‘discount code’ for her Rhode lip tint, at which point Justin grimaced. 

His disdainful response to Noah did not go unnoticed by fans, as one tweeted: ‘do Trevor Noah and Justin Bieber have some sort of beef or? that was painful to watch.’ 

One viewer joked on X, formerly Twitter: ‘Justin Bieber looks like he was about to murder Trevor Noah in any second hahaha,’ as another observed: ‘Justin Bieber did not want Trevor Noah over there with the jokes.’

Bieber caught viewers attention again later that night by delivering a performance of his new song Yukon dressed in nothing but his boxers.

He stalked the stage the stage, showing off his sprawl of tattoos and accompanying himself on the guitar as his wife Hailey looked on appreciatively.

Online reaction was more divided, with some quarters hailing him for giving a ‘beautiful and vulnerable performance’ while others heaped him with mockery, for example: ‘Justin this is the Grammys and not the beach… just embarrassing.’

Miley Cyrus also came in for opprobrium as fans accused her of failing to applaud when Lady Gaga beat her for a Grammy Award. 

Both women were up for best pop vocal album, Cyrus for her latest release Something Beautiful and Gaga for her new project Mayhem.

Gaga, 39, was announced as the winner, whereupon she burst into tears and got a kiss from her fiancé Michael Polansky as the audience erupted in a standing ovation.

Sabrina Carpenter, another one of the singers Gaga had just beaten for the prize, was seen clapping and beaming after rising to her feet.

When the camera cut to Cyrus, 33, however, she was firmly in her seat, not clapping and saying something inaudible to her fiancé Maxx Morando with a faint grin.

At that stage Cyrus was rubbing her hands together, so there remains the possibility that she had clapped a bit beforehand and only just stopped – but her reaction nevertheless provoked a blistering response on social media.

Meanwhile the late Ozzy Osbourne’s family were seen reduced to tears in the audience when the awards show paid tribute to him six months after his death.

Slash and Post Malone led the homage with a performance of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs, joined by Chad Smith, Duff McKagan and Andrew Watt.

Osbourne’s widow Sharon Osbourne and their children Jack and Kelly Osbourne could be glimpsed in the audience, clearly moved.

When Billie Eilish won song of the year for Wildflower, she took the stage with her brother and longtime co-writer Finneas O’Connell and used their speech as a political polemic, insisting that ‘no one is illegal on stolen land’ and blaring: ‘F*** ICE.’

Bad Bunny won album of the year for his latest release Debí Tirar Más Fotos and also made his speech a paean to immigrants in America.

Although he spoke almost entirely in Spanish onstage, he reserved the use of English for one sentence: ‘I want to dedicate this award to all the people that had to leave their homeland, their country, to follow their dreams.’ 

Debí Tirar Más Fotos was the first full Spanish-language album to win album of the year at the Grammys, and only the second to be nominated in the category. 

Bunny had a few more lighthearted moments as well, such as a running gag in which Noah tried to goad him into singing a bit at the Grammys.

If he did so, he would have violated his contractual obligation to not perform in public until he plays the Super Bowl halftime next Sunday.

In an apparently scripted bit, Noah teased him: ‘Like I find myself thinking when I’m in the room now, I’m like man, I wish I had, you know, I should have taken more photos.’

Bunny, whose Christian name is Benito Ocasio, asked: ‘Is that my song in English?’ and then broke and consented to sing only the briefest bit of Debí Tirar Más Fotos. 

Jelly Roll’s latest release Beautifully Broken won best country album, and he delivered a heartfelt speech about how important Christianity was to him – only to come in for fierce condemnation by liberals on social media.

‘I believe that music had the power to change my life, and God had the power to change my life,’ he said. ‘I want to tell y’all right now: Jesus is for everybody, Jesus is not owned by one political party. Jesus is not owned by no…label. Jesus is Jesus.’

Trolls flocked online to accuse the country star of ‘religious psychosis,’ and wonder: ”Does this mf Jelly Roll ever just talk normal?’

One wrote, in reference to the 275lbs he has lost over the course of the past approximately three years: ‘Jelly Roll being like scary skinny suddenly, girl, what happened. Now the face tattoos and Jesus talk seem even more menacing.’

Joni Mitchell lapsed into a long and eerie pause during her Grammys speech, and then had to be reminded onstage that she had won.

The 82-year-old folk music icon and her producer Patrick Milligan earned this year’s trophy for best historical album for her retrospective collection Joni Mitchell Archives: Volume 4 – The Asylum Years – (1976-1980).

When they took the stage, Mitchell said with a laugh: ‘This is the most glitter and glam I ever saw at the Grammys,’ but then drifted into a protracted silence.

Eventually Milligan gently touched her arm in order to urge her on, asking softly: ‘You gonna say anything?’ to which Mitchell said: ‘Did I win?’

‘We did,’ he said, prompting her to chirp: ‘Oh, I won? Oh!’ earning a laugh and a round of applause from the audience, as Milligan indicated them to her and said: ‘See?’

Mitchell suffered a brain aneurysm in 2015 and largely withdrew from the spotlight as she embarked on an extensive recovery that included relearning to speak and walk, though she has been making public appearances again over the past half-decade.

Musical history was made at the Grammys as the reclusive Lauryn Hill returned to the stage of the awards show for the first time in 27 years.

Having shot to fame in the 1990s with the hip hop trio Fugees, she broke out on her own and released her first and only solo studio album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1998, performing at the Grammys the following year.

In the ensuing years she rapidly became disillusioned with fame and the cutthroat inner workings of the music industry, withdrawing largely from the spotlight.

However she has been back onstage in recent years, and played the Grammys this Sunday to deliver an homage to two late R&B icons, Roberta Flack and D’Angelo.

Flack’s most famous single Killing Me Softly With His Song had been covered by Fugees in 1996, and when Hill reprised the number for Sunday night’s tribute, the moment became a reunion with her fellow Fugee Wyclef Jean.