From a trendsetting musical innovation to a possible feud with the military.
When she was only 16 years old, Cherilyn Sarkisian dropped out of high school and moved to Los Angeles with aspirations of fame and fortune. Five decades later, she’s achieved those things and a whole lot more, turning herself into a household name — and a mononym at that — who’s won a Grammy, an Oscar, and an Emmy.
But no one reaches that level of success without a few strange stories following them along the way, and that’s certainly the case with Cher. In addition to garnering rave reviews for her performances in song and on film, as well as her daring fashion choices (including that wild Bob Mackie gown), she’s also been the focus of more rumors than you could count. Some are true, some aren’t, but they’re all fascinating enough that we decided to poke around for a little more info.
We investigated five famous stories about this chameleonic performer in an attempt to separate fact from fiction — and now, the next time you hear someone parroting an erroneous bit of Cher trivia, you can give them a thematically appropriate message: Snap out of it!
Which famous songs contain background vocals from Cher?
It’s hard to imagine Cher in any position other than front and center, but it’s true that the future superstar provided backing vocals on some of the most notable songs of the 20th Century, thanks to her connection to influential producer (and, later, convicted murderer) Phil Spector.
On which tracks can you hear the voice of Cher in the background? They’re songs you know well, including “Da Doo Ron Ron” by The Crystals, “You’ve Lost That Lovin Feelin’” by The Righteous Brothers, and “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes, which is regarded by many critics as one of the greatest songs of all time.
Nino Tempo, who also sang background on the song, recalled how Cher ended up in the mix in a 2019 history of “Be My Baby”: “I had been dating Cher, and I was introducing her to the recording industry. She met Phil and Sonny and all the rest of the people at that session. Phil said, ‘Hey, can you sing? Why don’t you sing with the group?’ I was already out there singing the ‘be my baby’ background part. But Phil was smart, he liked voices which sounded non-professional. It just worked beautifully.”
Another soon-to-be-famous voice on that Ronettes track was Darlene Love. And while she says she doesn’t specifically remember recording with Cher for “Be My Baby,” she does recall singing alongside her for other songs.
“Back in those days, we had one mic between us. If you couldn’t ‘blend,’ you couldn’t work,” Love said. “I remember times working with Cher, and Phil had to tell her she was too loud. He would push her back further from the other singers.”
Was Cher the first person to popularize Auto-Tune?
These days, Auto-Tune is essentially inescapable in popular music. Whether your mind goes to the brazenly robotic-sounding work of artists like T-Pain, who made an entire career out of using the tool in the early 2000s, or to the dozens of superstars who use it much more subtly today, we’re all aware of the technology and how it influences the sound of the music we hear. And who do we have to thank for that? Cher, of course.
The history of Auto-Tune dates back to the early ‘90s when a mathematician named Andy Hildebrand began experimenting with digital sound manipulation. He officially released the Auto-Tune software in 1997, and it went mainstream in a major way with Cher’s 1999 blockbuster hit “Believe,” which became her biggest song ever and one of the most popular singles in the history of music.
Auto-Tune wasn’t originally designed to be used in such an obvious way. Before Cher came along, it was a method of studio trickery, meant to inconspicuously smooth out less-than-perfect notes from singers. But a spurt of unlikely creativity during the recording of “Believe” ended up completely changing the next several decades of music.
Cher explained how it happened during a 1999 interview with The New York Times: The inspiration came from a British singer named Andrew Roachford, whose album Cher had recently bought. “’We were tackling ‘Believe’ for the gazillionth time, and I said, ‘I’m so tired of doing this. Let’s just put on this CD and listen to music and get away from this,’” Cher remembered. One of Roachford’s songs used processing that made his voice sound mechanical, so Cher suggested they try something similar.
That’s when producer Mark Taylor started experimenting with Auto-Tune. When he finally shared the sound with Cher, she was over the moon with how it turned out — so much so that when she heard some executives were resistant, she put her foot down. “I said, ‘You can change that part of it, over my dead body!’ And that was the end of the discussion,” Cher recalled. “I said to Mark before I left, ‘Don’t let anyone touch this track, or I’m going to rip your throat out.’”
At the time, the public at large didn’t know what to call the effect on Cher’s voice. (In fact, that 1999 New York Times story about the success of “Believe” never uses the word Auto-Tune; instead, it’s described simply as “a new voice-tuning program.”) But the runaway success of the song kicked off a decades-long fascination with the tool that’s still everywhere today.
Did Cher perform under other names?
There are few markers of worldwide success more simple than being a universally recognized mononym, and Cher definitely fits that bill. But the cultural icon spent a little time trying to find the right moniker before landing on the one we all know today.
When she released her first-ever single in 1964, she did so under the name Bonnie Jo Mason. That was reportedly a decision by Phil Spector, who preferred to work with artists whose names sounded American. (Cher’s full name, of course, reflects her Armenian-American heritage.)
And while we’re talking about that song by “Bonnie Jo Mason,” it’s a funny story: The track is called “Ringo, I Love You,” and it’s an ode to Ringo Starr, the drummer who was then reaching the apex of global fame as Beatlemania took hold. If the song had been a hit, it’s possible Cher could’ve remained Bonnie forever, but that didn’t happen, thanks to a laughable concern on the part of radio stations. Although Cher clearly refers to herself throughout the lyrics as a “girl,” DJs worried the low tone of her voice would be mistaken for a man by listeners who might assume the song was a homosexual love letter to Ringo — and this being the 1960s, that significantly affected its airplay.
Cher then pivoted to performing with her husband Sonny Bono, who she married in 1964. But before they famously became “Sonny and Cher,” they released their first batch of joint songs under the names “Caesar and Cleo.” By the fall of 1964, they’d finally found the branding that would make them a smash success, and they released the song “Baby Don’t Go” under the names we all recognize.
Did Cher have ribs removed to look thinner?
The idea of famous people getting rid of their ribs is, oddly enough, not entirely uncommon in the pantheon of celebrity rumors. (Just ask Marilyn Manson.) But this extreme claim is — in the case of Cher, at least — definitively not true.
This bit of gossip can be traced back to the late ‘80s, when the magazine Paris Match claimed Cher had hired a surgeon to take out two of her ribs so she could maintain a more “boyish” figure. (She’s in good company: Similar rumors have plagued other notably fit celebrities including Jane Fonda, Raquel Welch, and more.) Cher sued Paris Match over the story, but it was picked up by other outlets and spread widely enough that it occasionally persists to this day.
Despite the attention the story has gotten, Cher has been clear that it’s totally false.
“If that were true, how could I do those health club commercials, in which I wear next to nothing? I’d be scarred all over,” she once said. “And could I wear the kind of clothes I do if I’d had all those operations? Wouldn’t there be visible scars everywhere?”
If you don’t recall the commercials she’s talking about, feast your eyes on this one from 1986:
Cher’s been open about the work she has had done — which she says includes a nose job, breast augmentation, and straightening her teeth — but in 1990, she even went so far as to hire a doctor to publicly share details of an examination into whether she’d had extensive plastic surgery beyond that.
“This patient has consulted me because the media are repeatedly [misreporting] information regarding any surgery which she may have had done to her body,” the doctor said, per Snopes. “She has never had any surgery to her upper and lower eyelids [or] her cheekbones [or chin] … All these areas represent her natural well-developed good looks and have never been touched by surgery.”
Did Cher have bad blood with the U.S. Navy?
One of Cher’s biggest hits is 1989’s “If I Could Turn Back Time,” and chances are that when someone mentions the song, you don’t just hear it. You see it. Specifically, you see Cher, clad in a barely-there getup made mostly of mesh, singing and dancing for a pack of titillated sailors on the battleship USS Missouri.
The song was a smash hit, but the video — which MTV deemed too steamy to play before 9 p.m. — didn’t exactly land well with the branch of the military that provided the set.
In a 1990 report from the Washington Post (headline: “Cher’s dirty dance embarrasses Navy”), a spokesperson explained that Cher was allowed to shoot her video on the ship — at no cost — because the Navy saw “an opportunity for us to get national exposure and reach the lucrative recruitable youth audience that watch MTV.”
WaPo reported at the time that the Navy had been told the concept for the video included Cher getting a “Dear John” letter from a sailor. They were not, however, told what Cher would be wearing — or at least that’s what they claimed, calling the controversial outfit “an unanticipated change during final stages of production” which “produced an unintended result, in retrospect.”
A Los Angeles Times story from just after the clip was released (headline: “In Video, the Navy Sees More of Cher Than It Foresaw”) featured unnamed Navy sources debating just how much of a ripple the video caused within their organization. While some didn’t seem all that bothered by it, others had very strong feelings in the other direction.
One retired commander reportedly wrote this message to the Navy after seeing the video one night: “I do not consider myself to be a prude. I enjoy watching scantily clad young ladies as much as the next man. But were I the commanding officer or another of the senior people who form a deep personal bond with their ship, I would be deeply embarrassed.”
At the time, sources told the papers that future requests to film on Naval property would be considered on a case-by-case basis — but at least one of them was doubtful that Cher would ever be back in the running for that privilege. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before she ever films another video on a Navy ship,” an anonymous junior officer said.
Is Cher engaged?
It’s no surprise that an A-list catch as fascinating has Cher has enjoyed plenty of relationships with notable men — including Warren Beatty, Tom Cruise, and Gregg Allman — but her most recent beau has captured an avalanche of online attention.
The 76-year-old is currently dating Alexander “AE” Edwards, a 36-year-old music executive. That means there’s a four-decade generation gap between them, and if you ask us, that’s fantastic; it’s about time we stopped judging older women who date younger men. But even Cher realizes the age difference seems shocking to some.
“On paper, it’s kind of ridiculous,” Cher recently said on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “But in real life, we get along great. He’s fabulous.”
We know they’re definitely together, but now the question is whether they’re engaged. Back in December, Cher tweeted a photo of Edwards holding a gigantic diamond ring, which led to speculation that he’d popped the question. Just get a load of this rock:
The couple hasn’t made any official announcement about their exact relationship status, although when TMZ caught up with them in January, they showed off the ring for the cameras — and when someone asked Cher how the engagement was going, she laughed and responded, “It’s going OK.”
It seems like we’ll have to wait and see if Cher’s about to link up with a third husband, but in the meantime, we’re not ruling out the idea of starting a prayer circle to manifest Bob Mackie designing the wedding dress.
