PROVO, Utah — Donny still delivers.
Donny Osmond made a surprise appearance Wednesday night at BYU Women’s Conference near his home and captivated an audience of 8,254 women and girls with his singing voice and his witness of Jesus Christ.
The 67-year-old star sang “Any Dream Will Do” from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” at the Marriott Center on BYU’s campus to amplify a message about Joseph given by his boyhood friend, Brother Brad Wilcox, first counselor in the Young Men General Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Brother Wilcox first brought out to the stage Osmond’s wife, Debbie, and their children and grandchildren, without saying who they were. He had them play the roles of the family of Joseph’s father, Jacob, whom God gave the new name Israel and whose family became the 12 tribes of Israel.
“The only thing that could have made this better is if we’d had the person who’d played the role of Joseph in the musical 2,000 times,” Brother Wilcox said with a big smile.
Then Osmond walked on stage in the coat of many colors he’d worn for all those performances and the 1999 movie, stunning the audience, which responded with cheers.
The next 18 minutes were unforgettable, as Osmond sang two songs, described his patriarchal blessing and spoke with Brother Wilcox, who asked him what he’d learned about God’s love as he played Joseph for six years.
Osmond said he studied the Bible and researched Joseph and thought often about how he was falsely imprisoned for what was a life sentence. He noted that Joseph Smith felt similarly when he was held in Liberty Jail.
“We all have gone through and continue to go through our own Gethsemanes in those moments where we say, ‘God, do you love me? Where are you?’” he said.
In his research, Osmond said he found that God made a promise to all people through the covenant he made with Abraham.
“He’s given every one of us a promise that if we endure those personal Gethsemanes well, if we just endure to the end and stay on the covenant path, the promises that God has given us — all that the Father has, not just a portion, all that the Father has, and all that he is — is ours if we endure it.
“Well, that, in my opinion, is loving God,” Osmond said. “That’s what I learned from studying Joseph, is that he loved and trusted God.”
Brother Wilcox taught that the covenants Latter-day Saints make with God become a birthright that makes them responsible to serve others.
“We’ve been given much temporally, and we’ve been given much spiritually,” he said. “We’ve been given much, and that is why it is not too much for God to ask us to live differently for his other children so that we can better lead and serve.”
Brother Wilcox told the women and girls at the conference that God not only loves them but trusts them.
“God trusts you, of all the people on this earth, he trusts you, the children of the Covenant, to gather Israel so that Israel can eventually gather all God’s children safely home to him,” he said.
Then Brother Wilcox repeated one of his long standing messages.
“Don’t let the world change you, when you were born to change the world,” he said.
Osmond supported his friend’s message.
“We have been promised by God that we will have eternal joy and glory with him. That’s love,” he said.
Osmond quoted from his own patriarchal blessing for the first time in public. A patriarchal blessing provides life counsel and declares a person’s lineage among the 12 tribes of Israel.
Osmond shared three brief passages:
- “No. 1, ‘Remember your secret prayers and ask the Lord to guide you in all of your activities.’”
- “No. 2, ‘Be humble, and the Lord will continue to lead you and give you answers to your prayers.’”
- “No. 3, ‘Always listen to the counsel of your parents and those who preside over you in the church.’”
He later realized that those three points resonated with him as a 9-year-old learning the church’s Articles of Faith because they aligned with the first article about believing in God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost.
“That’s the foundation to a happy life,” Osmond said. “And that was Joseph. He loved God. He trusted God. God loved him. God trusted him.”
Brother Wilcox asked Osmond to lead the audience in singing “Amazing Grace” to close the evening.
After the hymn Osmond said, “The Tabernacle is really jealous right now” and invited the audience to Las Vegas to be his backup singers for his residency, which has been extended through November.
The audience twice gave Osmond a standing ovation, including as he left the stage and spun his technicolor dreamcoat.
Osmond is performing at Harrah’s Showroom in a show that packs six decades of his show business career into 90 minutes. It includes a piece where he sings “Puppy Love” together with an AI version of his 14-year-old self.
He recently told interviewers that he knows retirement is coming.
“The day that I can’t reach that bar and give 110% on the stage is the day that the curtain will not go up. It’s not around the corner, but it’s inevitable,” he said.