November 17, 2010
Cher on her darkest struggles, ex-husbands, and retirement

Parade's November 21 cover story is a one-on-one sit-down with "Burlesque" star, Cher, who speaks with the magazine's Dotson Rader about her darkest struggles, her ex-husbands, and her desire to never retire. In these exclusive extras from Parade's interview, Cher opens up about leaving home at 16, the failure of her marriage to Sonny Bono, past loves, and more.

On her childhood: "I was terrible in school. I didn't like it. Nobody knew about dyslexia then, so everything I learned I learned from listening because I didn't read well. I could write if I did it very slowly. I knew I wasn't stupid. My mother would say, 'This doesn't make any difference. This is not going to be important to you later. Just do your best.' She always believed in me."

Discovering racism in her family: "Both my grandmothers were from the South. They were very prejudiced. They learned it growing up. They used all the bad words, like the 'n' word. One day my mom said to my grandmother, 'My children don't know these words and they don't need to hear them. I don't want you to talk like that in my house or you can't come over.'"

"When my mom took me to Little Rock, Arkansas, I got to see one of my relatives. I was so excited. She and I drove to the liquor store to get something and there were three black girls going down the street. She said, 'Let's scare them!' And she drove close to them. I said, 'Are you out of your damn mind? We could've hurt them!' It was the first time I noticed that it wasn't enough to love your family if you don't have the same values. Without those, you couldn't really relate to them or be around them."

On leaving home at 16 and living on her own: "One day I just said to my mom, 'This is it! I'm finished with all this crap. I don't want to go to school anymore. I don't really feel like being told what to do anymore. I want to get out on my own.' I just walked out. I'd had it. I left home and moved in with my girlfriend. I was completely unequipped for life. I got a crazy job -- I docked timecards at Robinson's Dept. Store. I hated it so badly that one day I just walked out and didn't even collect my paycheck. I just wanted out of there."

n meeting Sonny Bono: "When I met Sonny, I was with a girlfriend. We were sitting at this restaurant in L.A. Sonny was really attracted to my friend, not me, because she was 19, beautiful, and had all kinds of curves. I was attractive, but kind of like a board, just straight up and down. We all went out that night. My friend didn't dance, so Sonny and I ended up dancing all night long. I just loved to dance. Then he moved into the apartment house next door to me and my beautiful girlfriend, on Franklin in L.A. We became friends. I told him I had been sick and had lost my job. He said, 'Well, you can live in my place and cook and clean.' He had twin beds, and I lied to him about my age."

On moving in with Sonny and playing house: "I was a pretty fair housekeeper, but I couldn't cook at all. I was also real sickly, so Sonny ended up taking care of me all the time. I remember girls coming in and out of that house, like, by the thousands. The girls would say, 'Who's that?' And he'd go, 'Oh, that's just Cher.' We were just friends."

On beginning her career with Sonny: "Sonny had been trying to do a whole bunch of things in show business before he met me. When he saw me, everything kind of clicked into place for him. I was like raw, aimless, untamed energy, and he saw a way to give it direction. He molded me. His dream was to push me into being a huge star. He never really wanted to be in the spotlight himself, but once he got into it, he loved it more than I did."

After marrying Sonny in 1963, Cher suffered several miscarriages: "I lost four kids before Chaz. It's a spontaneous miscarriage, something that spontaneously aborts the fetus. It's called an angry uterus. It took a long time for someone to tell me that that's what it was. It just starts to contract, for no reason. After the third time it got to be a nightmare. People would be congratulating me because I was pregnant, and then I wouldn't be, and then they would be like, 'Oh, we're so sorry.' I thought, 'God, I don't want to have to hear this anymore.'"

On the birth of Chastity: "When I got pregnant with Chastity, my doctor said, 'In the beginning you have to stay in your bed, and then as it gets to be three months, you can get up but you have to stay in the house. I don't want you riding in cars, I want you to stay at home.' I did. With Chaz, I had a really difficult delivery, and then I hemorrhaged after I came home. It was touch and go. Chaz brought a new element into our marriage. I was a mother now."

On the failure of her marriage to Sonny: "I still was crazy about working with Sonny. He never wanted the rules to change, but Sonny had changed and so had I. He didn't want to give up control. I would just listen to him and do what I was told. It started to get just oppressive for me because he didn't want to give me any space. I wasn't allowed to have really any friends. It was just too much for me."

On her marriage to rock star Gregg Allman of The Allman Brothers: "One night I went to the Troubadour in L.A. and Gregory was playing by himself at the piano. He had such a beautiful voice and he played so beautifully. Never swore. The kindest, most gentle man. When I met him I didn't know he was a drug addict. He said he kept it from me as long as he could, using the smallest amount of heroin possible just to keep himself from becoming sick."

"Gregory kept trying to get straight. He was in a band where the other members were abusing drugs. He wasn't strong enough to deal with that band. It seemed to me they all hated him. They were so jealous of him. He was a much nicer person than they were. I was in his corner. I couldn't help him with those guys, but I pointed out to him, 'You can't see it, you're too close. They call you bro, but when you go on that stage, people only look at you. When they tell you your singing is s--- or when they tell you you can't play, that you're not a real musician, you tell them to go up on stage without you!' I loved him. I just thought Gregory was never going to be straight."

On her many lovers: "I loved all of those guys. I had the best time. I'm not man crazy, but I loved being with them. I wouldn't give up having them in my life, ever. I found so many wonderful things about all of them. None of them are the same. Unique. It takes a very strange man to be the right man for me, there's no mathematical equation. I've remained friends with the guys that I've been with. I stay in touch with all of them. I never had any kind of acrimonious relationship with any of the men I've been with. Our relationships might not have ended calmly but we cooled down, and we're still friends."

On her new movie, 'Burlesque': "I knew acting was never going to be my career. I was never going to make many movies. Once in a while I would get a movie, like 'Burlesque,' and I'd think 'Oh, I can do a good job on this,' and I would do it. I liked the idea of 'Burlesque.' Anybody can get me to do anything if they present it as fun. I never want to think of work as work, I always want to think of it as fun. It's not the money. Some movies that I made, I got nothing. 'Tea with Mussolini' didn't pay anything. My first movies didn't pay anything, but they were movies I wanted to do. I'm proud of my work, for sure. I feel really good about 'Burlesque.' Stanley Tucci is a genius, and Christina [Aguilera] was great, and Peter Gallagher, too, and the girls were all great to work with."