Cher talks about herself without filters: the new album, politics and her young boyfriend

This interview with Cher is published in issue 46 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 14 November 2023. To celebrate our #20changes with us, read here

At the Paris fashion shows she wore a blonde wig. During this interview she is wearing a red one. And in the cover photo shoot she wanted one black and another white (but frisé). What goes on and in Cher’s head is not just a show. It’s a firework. «Of course», she says, «my life has been a long ride on bumper cars. If I wasn’t a little crazy and childish, I wouldn’t be here.” Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre, aka Cher, is 77 years old and has been on the stages of music and cinema for more than sixty yearshas two marriages behind her, two children, a 36-year-old producer boyfriend and a Christmas album coming out.

I can’t help but start asking her about Christmas…
«We’re off to a bad start. I hate Christmas.”

Look, she made the Christmas album.
“Cher did it.”

Does he talk about himself in the third person?
«Sure, what’s the harm? Besides, I’m not a Cher fan. Cher is just a part of me. Cher is my job.”

Ok, so who is Cherilyn?
«A childish, stubborn, neurotic but also very, very funny woman. And quite lovely.”

I would like to ask you about your childish side.
«I inherited it from my mother. My childish side allowed me to sing and dance since I was a child. I remember my grandfather coming home with a guitar and we would all sing together. Without my childish side there would be none of this.”

She talks about bumper cars, but her life seems like a roller coaster ride. What were the highest and lowest points?
«The lowest point? Maybe the day I was dumped by my record company and my manager. I was in England and the manager of Warner UK told me: “Don’t worry, I believe in you, they’re wrong”. In bad times you have to understand who supports you and who doesn’t.”

And the best moments?
«The birth of my children. My children are the best gift that life has given me.”

His son Chaz went through a transition journey. Our society itself is experiencing, in a certain sense, a transition from a restrictive culture to a more open and inclusive one. How do you see this change?
«Look, for a certain period I admired many people intent on building a more inclusive world, a place where diversity of culture, origin, identity or sexual orientation were celebrated because celebrating them is the only way we have to push ourselves after you. But then, suddenly, I saw other people and other circumstances destroying all of this and promoting an idea that, for example, if you’re not Christian and if you’re not heterosexual, then you’re wrong and you’re in trouble.”

She has always been very political, she criticized Trump and was criticized for it.
«Let me start by saying that I am biased: I admire Joe Biden and despise Donald Trump. Everyone criticizes Biden for his age but I think he is doing a great job because I have seen few presidents work as hard as him. Politics is part of my life, it cannot be otherwise. I was with Hillary Clinton when she lost: I remember that night, I was putting on make-up to celebrate when the news broke. Politics is part of my life even if sometimes it’s really scary.”

About fear and loss. His song Believe He says: Do you believe in life after love? Do you believe in life after love? It has been taken up by civil rights activists as a symbol of resistance even when elections and governments go against them. What do you think?
«I think there were wonderful times in America, decades when everything was going straight
the future, years of great progress. It reminds me of when Barack Obama was elected: that night I was there, dancing in the streets of Washington. The people were so happy, all happy. Blacks, whites, men, women hugging each other, celebrating. Everyone was included. I had no inkling that across town others felt disfigured, outraged that a black man sat in the top seat in the White House. They were like a counterpoint, a musical undertone. I have a friend who works as an infiltrator for the CIA and the FBI. She is impressive, she is a small woman, you wouldn’t bet a penny on her, but instead she is so strong, maybe I would like to make a film about her based on her story. In short, one day she confided in me that she had infiltrated a group of white supremacists. And I ask you: but why, why do these people want to undermine our democracy? Why do they hate us so much? Do you know what he replied to me?

What?
«Because these people don’t just hate. These people hate each other. They hate each other. And when one of them comes to power, then it’s a disaster. And, unfortunately, one of them came to power.”

Another result of this hatred of power is, perhaps, the step backwards regarding a woman’s freedom to decide about her own body.
«America is taking steps backwards. We women must be able to decide for ourselves about our bodies. And I think it’s absurd if not ridiculous that we’re still here talking about it. Do you realize that we are still here having to fight for what our grandmothers and mothers worked so hard to achieve? The other day I was saying to my friends: do you realize that soon we might have to defend the fact that we want to be free to have long hair even at my age, to wear tight jeans, to wear miniskirts? Still? But really? The real problem is that we must never stop fighting for acquired rights. Never”.

He tells me about his age. She often talks about her grandmother who, looking at herself in the mirror, said to herself: but who is that woman over there? How important is it to accept the passing of time?
«My mother was so good at accepting the passing time… And she was so ridiculous when she repeated to me: “If you don’t pay attention to the passing time, the passing time won’t pay attention to you”. All bullshit. The truth is that the passing of time is a huge rip-off. But there is no escape and perhaps she was right: if you let time overwhelm you, it’s over. Then bear in mind that I am an artist, and an artist is not allowed time to pass. Everyone expects you to have a way out, an escape from time. As if it were possible to escape age.”

And is it possible?
«But what do I know!».

Time doesn’t run away but she kills herself in the gym with Zumba, weights, cycling…
«Of course! And do you know what I tell you? I like it too! Training is now part of my life, it always has been and it no longer weighs on me. And then I have a new young and very good trainer who kills me with workouts. I love it”.

With his work, with his career he has inspired entire generations. Who inspires you today?
«All those and all those who are younger than me. I think of Sweeney, Pink, Rihanna. There are so many young artists who have new ideas, new styles. Like my boyfriend Alexander, who produced one of the songs on the new album together with Tyga. My career today only makes sense if I surround myself with new and unexpected things.”

She tells me about her boyfriend. She has had two husbands and many affairs. What have you learned from relationships with men?
“This is easy. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

So what made her fall in love again?
“I do not know. Falling in love is like dealing with something invisible. It happens to you. Point. And then I always think of love as if it existed on the page of a book. At least it always seems more beautiful this way.”

Don’t try to escape the question: what made you fall in love with Alexander?
«So, we were at a party. At a certain point a friend of mine says to me: “Have you seen that guy with diamonds in his teeth?” And then I look at this guy with the bleached hair, the tattoos and, yes, diamonds in his teeth. Real diamonds. So my friend takes me to him, we start talking, I ask him how you are, basically we start texting each other and I start to understand that, yes, I like him. Besides, it’s supposed to be our anniversary, we’ve been together for a year now. However: falling in love happens and it’s like seeing stardust. And sometimes stardust is a big rip off and even dangerous. But you know what I’m telling you: who cares!

If you could, like in your song, go back in time, what advice would you give yourself?
«I would tell myself, listen Cher, since life is a long ride on bumper cars, once you hit a wall, don’t do it again, change direction and if you really can’t make it, at least look for another wall. If you always fixate on the same wall, it’s over.”

What was the wall you hit most times?
“I can make a TV series with my favorite walls.”

It would not be bad…
«So, the worst wall… Well, Sonny Bono, my first husband. There were many good things about him and just as many not so good things. I met him when I was sixteen. I left him when I was twenty-six and I was practically a child. I had no idea what it meant to make a decision, to be an adult. I was dropped by two record companies. I changed my skin, music, image. But with Sonny I felt so small when I needed to understand that I wasn’t small. And the only way to be great, to become great, was to stop hitting the same wall.”

Who made her become the woman, the artist she is today?
“My mother”.

As?
«My mother was beautiful. It is funny. And sometimes a big bitch too. My mother was the woman I later became. Dear God, I’m just like her. But I don’t have her bad temper, well, not that. I’m nicer, more like my father”

When did you last cry?
“This morning. I said to myself: oh God, other interviews, other promotions, other tours, other rides… But I no longer have the strength for all this!

It seems to me that at Paris fashion week she went to bed at dawn every night…
“Oh yes! You know what I say? It’s not me who made fashion week, it’s fashion week that made me!”.

What makes her happy?
«Malibu. My children. Alexander. And also this Christmas album, who would have thought, made me happy. I made it with artists around the world: Michael Bublé in Argentina, Cyndi Lauper in New York, Tyga in Dubai. I hate Christmas albums, I hate writing Christmas cards, but I think this album is one of the best of my career.”

Last question. Where do you see yourself in ten years?
«But where do you want it to be in ten years? Dead. She will be dead. Of course, I wish everyone all the luck in the world. But I won’t be here anymore.”

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