If you’ve been on social media lately, you’ve most likely come across a video of a red-haired woman dressed in a maroon ensemble belting out “surprise surprise.”
The short clip is accompanied by a meme referencing something unexpected then – surprise, surprise – the truth is revealed.
That woman is Cilla Black, an English pop star and television host. The viral video is from Black’s television show from the ’80s called “Surprise Surprise.”
As a new generation is learning about Black, they’ve also learned about her feud with legendary singer Dionne Warwick.
The two famously had a decades-old feud with Warwick accusing Black of copying her singing style.
Someone on X, formerly Twitter, recently caught up on the drama saying, “I just found out the ‘Surprise Surprise’ lady (Cilla Black) stole a bunch of songs from Dionne Warick back in the day including ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart.'”
The singing legend cheekily responded to the post with a video of Black singing “Surprise Surprise.”
“Anyone Who Had a Heart” was a song written for Warwick by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
Warwick’s recording of “Anyone Who Had a Heart” hit the Top Ten in the U.S., Canada, Spain, Netherlands, South Africa, Belgium and Australia.
When her single took off in the U.S., English record producer George Martin pitched the song to Cilla Black.
Her single debuted at No. 28 on the U.K. Top 50. When Warwick’s version hit No. 42, Black’s version hit No. 10 in the market.
Back in 1995, Black interviewed for “Great Performances” and said: “It was a No. 1; Dionne was dead choked and she’s never forgiven me to this day.”
Warwick opened up about this in her 2010 memoir “My Life, As I See It.”
“Sometimes there are good reasons why a recording of the same song by different artists is an honest coincidence; other times, there is something a bit sinister about the way it’s done,” she explained. “‘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).
The English singer passed away in 2015.