Cher publishes (but doesn’t read) her memoirs: From living in an orphanage to Sonny Bono’s betrayal

Cher has so much to share about her life, she couldn’t fit it all into one book. That’s why the 78-year-old Californian singer has had to divide her memoirs into two parts. On Tuesday, November 19, she released the first volume of her autobiography, Cher: The Memoir, Part One, where she reflects on her early years, her complicated upbringing — especially her relationship with her mother — her first steps in music, and her tumultuous relationship with her first husband and mentor, Sonny Bono. The release date for the second volume remains unknown, as both Cher and her publisher have acknowledged. The singer wanted to capture her experiences in print, and although she didn’t write the memoir herself, she achieved her goal. On Monday, one day before the official release, the book was already in the top five on Amazon’s U.S. sales list.

According to The New York Times, which previewed the book alongside a lengthy interview with the artist, Cher enlisted several ghostwriters to tell her story. She started with one, but after the first draft didn’t meet her expectations, she decided to expand both the pages and the team. For four months, two additional writers joined the project, along with an editor who visited her home weekly. In the interview, Cher admits that the process left her “exhausted,” even though she never read the final version.

The first 432 pages of the memoir (in its hardcover English edition, published by Dey Street Books) cover her life from her birth in 1946 up to the early 1980s. This period culminates in a pivotal conversation with director Francis Ford Coppola, which opened her eyes to the world of acting. By then, Cher had already dabbled in film and television, in addition to her music videos, but it was then that she really made the leap. In 1984, she received an Oscar nomination for her role in Silkwood, and in 1987, she starred in The Witches of Eastwick and, most notably, Moonstruck, which earned her the coveted Academy Award. But the road to success was far from easy.

Cheryl Sarkisian didn’t have an easy childhood. Her parents, Georgia and Johnnie, didn’t exactly fit the mold of the typical happy American family of the 1950s. Her mother, a perpetual aspiring actress who once appeared on the famous series I Love Lucy, was married six times, according to Cher’s sister, or eight times, according to the singer — depending on whether you count the husbands she remarried. Johnnie, the first of those husbands and one she married twice, was 20 when he wed Georgia, who was 18. According to Cher, her father was a habitual heroin user and a common criminal, and was never very present in her life. In fact, she claims she was almost absent in his life as well.

When Georgia’s mother found out she was pregnant just three months after the wedding, Johnnie forced her to go to a clinic for an abortion. Georgia didn’t want to: “It was her body, her life, and her choice,” Cher writes in her memoir, nearly 80 years later. “Thank God she got off that table, though, or I wouldn’t be here to write these pages.”

But raising her baby wasn’t easy, and Georgia had to leave Cher in a Catholic children’s home in Pennsylvania for a long period. When she returned for her, the little girl was already walking. Meanwhile, Georgia worked as a waitress on the night shift, earning just $20 a week, saving up to support her. She visited Cher week after week until she could get her back and move to Nevada to get a divorce. There, Cher was cared for by neighbors — something the young girl was barely aware of at the time. It wasn’t until adulthood, when her grandmother came to see her perform in Las Vegas, that she was introduced to one of those neighbors. “I thought that they were babysitters. I had no idea I lived with them,” Cher recalls.

After Nevada, Georgia — who passed away two years ago — pursued her dream of becoming an actress, and they moved to Los Angeles, her dream land. There, Cher mingled with the children of celebrities like Liza Minnelli and had a brief youthful romance with Warren Beatty. But in reality, she was a poor girl with shoes held together with rubber bands and cardboard soles. Cher admits her life was complicated: “The kind of chaos I witnessed — it’s just too much. Too much anger, too much fear, too much.”

In the early 1960s, at the age of 16, she met Sonny Bono in a coffee shop. She lied about her age — he was 27 — and their friendship soon led to them moving in together. He offered her shelter in exchange for cleaning and cooking, but made it clear: “Don’t worry, I’ve got twin beds. And honestly, I don’t find you particularly attractive.” Two years later, they married — first in a mock ceremony in their bathroom, and then officially in 1969.

Cher’s marriage to Sonny Bono wasn’t a happy one either. Together, they had their first child, Chaz Bono, now 55 years old. At birth, Chaz was a girl named Chastity. Cher explains in her book that she will refer to her son as Chas in this first volume, with his consent. In the second volume, which will cover his transition, she will call him Chaz.

Although Bono supported his wife’s music career, initially recording together (they performed as Caesar & Cleo) with tremendous success, he also drove her to ruin — both literally and figuratively. “He took all my money,” Cher admits. “I just thought, We’re husband and wife. Half the things are his, half the things are mine. It didn’t occur to me that there was another way.” To this day, she says, she doesn’t understand how it happened or how he could have done that to her.

According to Cher, Bono tried to expand beyond his fame as a singer and became obsessed with controlling her career. He wouldn’t let her make her own decisions, form friendships with the band members — or even their wives — or attend social events. He gradually stifled her, suffocating her spirit. He was unfaithful, and even began to accuse her of cheating on him.

They performed together on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, sang together, and toured together, but their family life was falling apart. Cher writes about a night in 1972 when she felt consumed by loneliness and considered jumping off a hotel balcony: “I saw how easy it would be to step over the edge and simply disappear.”

They were no longer a real married couple, but their professional partnership lasted two more seasons — all for the sake of the show. As reported by CBS, Cher briefly dated music mogul David Geffen, who one day decided to get hold of her contract: “Sonny owned 95% of the company and his lawyer owned 5%. And it was called Cher Enterprises, but I own nothing! And we’d worked together for almost 12 years.”

Starting from scratch, Cher embraced her newfound independence, with total control over her career — no longer overshadowed by her ex-husband. She agreed to a residency in Las Vegas — or “the elephant graveyard,” as she describes it — where she performed two shows a night for months. Her career rebounded, finding success both in music and film. In fact, she still sings today — most recently at the Victoria’s Secret fashion show — and continues to work with a vocal coach. She says she will be “very sad” when she can no longer perform.

Meanwhile, Bono’s career declined. He moved to Palm Springs, California, a luxurious desert town, and entered politics, serving as mayor from 1988 to 1992. He later became a Republican congressman, a role that put him at odds with Chaz on numerous occasions. Bono remarried to Mary Whitaker, with whom he had two more children, before dying in a skiing accident in January 1998.

Cher remarried in 1975 to Gregg Allman, a keyboardist and singer. Their marriage lasted just nine days, but they reconciled and spent years on and off, ultimately separating in 1979. Together, they had a son, Elijah, in 1976, who has struggled with addiction and mental health issues. In fact, a year ago, Cher sought legal guardianship of him due to his inability to manage his finances — $120,000 a year from a trust fund established by his late father. However, they reached a private mediation agreement in May. But Cher doesn’t mention much about Elijah in her memoir or in her interview with The New York Times, so perhaps she will address it in the second volume of her memoir. We’ll have to wait about a year to find out.

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