Cher’s new memoir has been seven years in the making.
“It was really hard,” the entertainer told Yahoo Entertainment of the book project she started in 2017, “and sometimes I just wanted to jump off a bridge.”
For all her talents and achievements, the list of which is long – the latter of which was recently inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for her seven-decade musical career – the struggle was really writing. Cher: The Memoirs, Part One, which is out now. Having dyslexia played a role, but so did slogging through a lifetime of memories, many of which were admittedly ‘very painful’.
“Some of it was easy, some of it was fun, and some of it was really hard and… I’m just getting over it,” the 78-year-old “Believe” singer said. “Because we were forced to do the book over and over again. At the end we were at the wire. We worked… 11 hours a day.
By we, Cher refers to the fact that the book was written three times, using the same number of ghostwriters.
“I probably should have done four,” she added.
Cher tells the first part of her life story, including her years as Sonny and Cher. (Marcello Salustri/Mondadori via Getty Images)
“When I read it the first time, it wasn’t about stories, it was about information,” she said. “I thought: I’m not going to succeed. Information is not important. It doesn’t mean anything. It won’t take you anywhere. Stories take you somewhere.”
“It’s gone through a lot of changes” to get where it is today, she said. When we spoke, Cher said she hadn’t seen the final cut yet.
While it’s a relief that the book is finished and out into the world, technically the project is only half over. Along the way, it was decided to split the memoir into two parts – part one now and part two in a year – because it was taking so long to complete.
The stories in it Cher: The Memoir, Part One describes her life until she started acting in the early 1980s. We learn that her mother, Georgia Holt, almost had an abortion, but changed her mind and in 1946, Cheryl Sarkisian (not Cherilyn, as Cher thought her birth name was until 1978) was born.
Cher had a difficult and unstable childhood. She was placed in a Catholic orphanage for a while as an infant and later left as a toddler to live with family friends when her mother was away with a wealthy man she met in Reno, Nevada. Cher moved and changed schools constantly during her acting career. the many marriages of singer mothers and a changing cast of father figures that came and went. Her biological father, Johnnie Sarkisian, was a heroin addict.
Cher’s mother, Georgia Holt, was a singer and aspiring actress I love Lucy and lose the leading role in it The asphalt jungle to Hollywood newcomer Marilyn Monroe. (Steve Granitz/WireImage)
Cher grew up quickly. At age 15, she dated Warren Beatty, who was 25. Her mother was impressed and did not object to the age difference or Beatty’s reputation among women. At sixteen, Cher was living on her own. That year, 1962, she met Sonny Bono, eleven years her senior, in a coffee shop. Initially platonic roommates, the pair grew into one of the most famous – and most fashionable – musical duos of all time.
While Sonny and Cher were magical on stage, their marriage was lonely and Sonny was in control. He burned Cher’s tennis clothes in the backyard after she spoke to a man after a lesson. She claimed Sonny cheated on her with dancers, actresses and sex workers. Their breakup was brutal, with Cher learning that she was under contract with Sonny and had no money of her own. He accused her of being an unfit mother in their custody battle over Chaz.
Cher credited music director David Geffen, whom she dated after Bono, with helping dig her out of a hole professionally. She subsequently married musician Gregg Allman, the father of her son Elijah Blue Allman, but he struggled with drug addiction and they divorced.
After divorcing Bono in 1975, Cher was married for several years to Gregg Allman, who struggled with a substance abuse disorder. (Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images)
“There’s a lot of life in it,” she said of the 411-page tome, which is so Cher, including every F-bomb you can think of (about 40 by our count).
“I did everything from memory,” she said of the ghostwriting process. “We would just sit there. Julia [Leatham] would write anything. Mostly she left it in my words. I have a special way of talking. … Sometimes I pause where maybe you wouldn’t expect to pause or think it was part of it, but that’s just who I am.
Cher said she “hasn’t written anything down because I don’t like writing” and her problems with dyslexia. “It’s just too much for me to handle.”
The learning disability is also the reason Cher turned to Stephanie J. Block, who won a Tony Award for playing her on Broadway The Cher Showto record the audiobook.
“I once said to a director, I can read or I can act, but I can’t do both at the same time,” the Academy Award winner said. “Because I’m dyslexic, it’s very difficult. It takes so much more effort and I make a lot of mistakes.”
Cher asked Stephanie J. Block, who played her The Cher Show, to help her narrate the audiobook. (Taylor Hill/FilmMagic)
Cher called it “the best of both worlds” that she recorded the beginning of each chapter of the audiobook and then Block took over.
“She’s doing a great job,” she said. “It’s not an imitation of me. … I said, ‘Stephanie, don’t try to cheat on me. Just think of me in your mind.’ She knows me. So I think people will be very happy.”
Cher is also happy, now that part one is out and she can exhale for a moment. But her next deadline is just around the corner.
When we asked if part two had been turned in at this point, she replied, “No, are you crazy?” I don’t do things on time.”
Cher: The Memoir, Part One is out now.
