Source: TV Times / Getty
She’s among the top 40 hitmakers in America between 1955 to 1999, second most-charted amongst female vocalists during that musical era as well, has six GRAMMYs and a Lifetime Achievement Award to her name, is in the hall of fame of Hall Of Fame inductions and overall has sold over 100 million records worldwide.
However, mention the iconic name Dionne Warwick in 2023, and you’ll more than likely hear the term “Social Media Queen” bestowed upon her more frequently than Billboard queen. This is due to her infectious ability at the youthful age of 83 to self-publish tweets (X’s?), memes, gifs, and, yes, now even TikToks to millions of social media users across the globe with an unmatched comedic wit — let’s just call her “World’s Favorite Auntie.” It’s for that very reason that she, once again, has become the talk of the Internet recently thanks to a reignited “feud” with another pop diva that’s been experiencing her own heavy surge of post-mortem viral fame: Cilla Black.
If the name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, this clip sure will:
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Surprise, surprise! Who knew that Warwick and the late English singer were at odds back in the day? Apparently a few music historians out there, as that’s how the whole thing went viral in the first place. Last Thursday (December 7), a user sent a post out on X that read, “I just found out the “Surprise Surprise” lady (Cilla Black) stole a bunch of songs from @dionnewarwick back in the day including Anyone who had a heart [sic],” even following up with an article that deep-dived into the diva feud back in 2021. Just over four hours later, Warwick sent out what some would describe as a Mortal Kombat-style Fatality move of responses.
https://t.co/9O2mJQhbT4 pic.twitter.com/jPzTXWo4ke
— Dionne Warwick (@dionnewarwick) December 7, 2023
— Ma$on (@FirstGentleman) December 7, 2023
It’s true; while “Anyone Who Had a Heart” gave Warwick her first top 10 Billboard hit in the U.S. at no. 8, the song sent Black to number one internationally and gave her the biggest female UK chart hit of the 1960s. As the aforementioned Daily Express article put it, “The American singer was taking the US charts by storm at the time, but English producer George Martin noticed the track and recognised it as a hit. Martin decided he wanted someone on his side of the pond to sing it, so later settled on giving it to Cilla to re-release. Cilla released her version of the song on January 31, 1964, just two months after Dionne’s version which landed in November 1963. The two songs sparked an intense feud between the singers, something Cilla went to her grave with. [sic]”
As Dionne herself put in My Life, As I See It, her 2010 autobiography, “‘Anyone Who Had A Heart,’ for example, was just flat out copied. “Note for note, word for word, and not very well, I might add – by the white British pop singer Cilla Black (whose real name is Cilla White; go figure).”
Un. Matched.
Take a look below for some of the standout reactions we saw to Dionne Warwick hilariously reminding us that — surprise, surprise! — Cilla Black was swiping her songs:
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