On stands next Sunday, November 21st is Cher’s sit down one-on-one cover interview with Dotson Rader of Parade Magazine. The ‘Burlesque’ star opens up about leaving home at 16, the failure of her marriage to Sonny Bono, past loves, and more. Here are some outtakes;
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.?
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 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.”