that's mother

Cher recalls meeting gay men for the first time as a child: “Why isn’t everybody like this”

By · 18 comments · Updated on January 26, 2024
Cher, sporting long black hair and pink lipstick, stands smiling in front of a blue background at the Almain Paris Fashion Week step-and-repeat. She wears a white blazer adorned with black sparkling swirls, opened to reveal a black tank-top.

With a career spanning seven decades (and counting!), Cher is a living legend –– and she continues surprising us.

Sporting a blonde beehive, rhinestones around her eyes, and the most glamorous shoulder pads we’ve seen in ages, the 77-year-old recently graced the cover of the newly reincarnated Paper Magazine.

In promotion of her first-ever holiday album –– simply titled, Christmas –– and her first collection of original tracks in a decade, Cher has been making the press rounds. And boy, is she as fiery as ever!

In a sprawling interview, she dished on putting her own spin on Christmas classics –– like campy favorite “Santa Baby” which she’s always felt –– and the record’s unexpected collaborations, like rapper Tyga. “You would never expect in the same sentence to hear ‘Cher and Tyga,'” she joked. (Her hunky 37-year-old BF keeps her up to date on today’s popular artists.)

But the noted ally got especially fired up when talking about the rise of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the U.S.

“It’s f*cking insane,” she said. “I don’t understand, this is not my America … It’s like, you have to be one thing and all of a sudden, all the things that add spice and excitement and beauty, unless you do it in their way, it’s no good and they want to get rid of it all. Like teaching Black history or banning books that are fabulous books.”

Her advice? “You have to show your displeasure and you have to show how wrong it is to discount people in a community for being who they are,” she said.

As it turns out, the Queen of Camp has a looooong history with the queers, having met her “first gay guys” at 9-years-old.

“I thought, ‘Why isn’t everybody like this,'” she remembered. “‘None of the men I know are like this, none of the men are so funny and so vivid and so full of life and fun to be around.’ And that was my introduction.” (We’ve never been prouder to be members of the LGBTQ+ community.)

It turns out Cher learned about inclusivity from her late mother Georgia Holt, who “wasn’t prejudiced in any way.” She even told off the singer’s grandmother for using slurs when Cher was a child.

“I think [from our family] is where we get a lot of who we are,” the “Turn Back Time” singer explained. “If we’re all together, we make such an interesting tapestry –– and that sounds like such bullsh*t –– but we make something more interesting than just one thing. It’s like if you had to have potatoes and you’re like, ‘Oh f*ck, is this all there is?'”

For the record, we find it hard to believe that Cher has ever eaten a starch. Now, Cherlato on the other hand….

The singer also got hilariously candid about her music… and that trademark voice which she “never liked … that much.” (We respectfully disagree!)

“If I had my choice, I probably would have another one, but I didn’t get my choice,” she explained. “I don’t know, it’s weird. It doesn’t sound like a man, it doesn’t sound like a woman. I’m somewhere more in-between.”

But as it turns out, that disdain may have pushed her to venture into the unknown while crafting mega-hit “Believe,” which just celebrated its 25th anniversary.

As Cher explained, her producer didn’t use autotune, but a tool called a “pitch machine.” The two “had a fight” during the recording process because he kept asking her to “sing it better” and she didn’t understand the newfangled tech.

Still, after a few hours of work, he played what would be come “Believe” and Cher was “mesmerized.”

“All of the sudden, [the verses] were so amazing, they just pulled you in,” she recalled. “Also, it didn’t sound like me so I was really excited.” (Apparently when Warner Records chairman Rob Dickins fired back with the same critique, she reportedly told him, “I know, it’s glorious.”)

And while Cher likely won’t be visiting the clubs anytime soon to request “DJ Play a Christmas Song,” she certainly has some great memories from her dancing days.

“Michelle Pfeiffer and I, we were in Saint-Tropez once and we used to go early to this place that was a big dance club and we would dance ’til our hair was wet,” she recalled. “But Studio 54 was like heaven, it was the best place ever.”

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall….

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