{"id":144435,"date":"2023-12-05T07:16:37","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T07:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theprojectsworld.com\/?p=144435"},"modified":"2023-12-05T07:16:37","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T07:16:37","slug":"cher-on-ageing-family-life-and-making-it-work-with-40-years-younger-boyfriend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprojectsworld.com\/celebrities\/cher-on-ageing-family-life-and-making-it-work-with-40-years-younger-boyfriend\/","title":{"rendered":"Cher on ageing, family life, and making it work with 40-years younger boyfriend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cOk, will someone PLEASE tell me\u2026 when will I feel old? This is ridiculous, I keep hearing these numbers, but I honestly can\u2019t understand them,\u201d tweeted pop superstar Cher, when she turned 77 in May.<\/p>\n

And as she chats to OK! <\/b>about her new album, family festivities and her Christmas memories, we\u2019re just as dumbfounded. She may tell us she is \u201ccranky and teary because I\u2019ve been working really hard\u201d but she\u2019s a funny, feisty ball of energy. <\/p>\n

Talking about ageing in the public eye, she tells us, \u201cWith men, it doesn\u2019t seem to matter nearly as much as it does for women. You see men in films and they\u2019re craggy-faced and they\u2019re old, but no one seems to mind it, but you didn\u2019t see women like that. But now women are able to get older and still be relevant.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou just had this sell-by date – it really didn\u2019t matter what kind of person you were. I mean, it helped if you looked better, but women lost their value starting at a certain age, which is kind of bullsh*t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born (Cherilyn Sarkisian) in California in 1946, the star has always been a force of nature, as her late mother, the actress and singer Georgia Holt knew all too well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was nine years old, I decided I was going to run away from school,\u201d she remembers. \u201cI talked my friend into going on a journey, like going on an adventure, and we hopped on a freight train. I had no idea where I was going. I\u2019d thrown my lunchbox away, which my mom was more angry about than anything else, and then we just rode this train until my friend started crying because it got dark.<\/p>\n

So I called my mom and she was like, \u2018Cher! What? You\u2019re where? What have you done? Oh my God.\u2019 I wasn\u2019t running away, I was going to come home but I just wanted to have the adventure. I was a wild child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remembering Georgia – who died in December last year, aged 96 – Cher tells us, \u201cWe were really poor. But my mom always managed to do a good job. She saved her money and mostly that went into Christmas time for my sister and myself. You don\u2019t have to have a lot of money to have a fun time at Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s those memories of life at home with family that may have prompted Cher to release her very first festive album, simply named \u2018Christmas\u2019, which features duets with the likes of Stevie Wonder, Michael Buble and Cyndi Lauper on new interpretations of classics and a few dance bangers for the family party season.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI love Christmas. I mean, you know, you decorate the house and everyone comes over,\u201d Cher says, adding that her love of the upbeat festive spirit means \u201cthere are only two sad songs on the album\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not your mother\u2019s Christmas album, you know?\u2019, she smiles. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to sing \u2018Silent Night\u2019 or all the songs that had been sung in better ways by better singers than me.<\/p>\n

Even if no one ever listened to it, or no one ever bought it, it\u2019s still one of the best albums I\u2019ve ever made and I would be proud.\u201d So what does she have planned with her own family and friends this year?<\/p>\n

\u201c Well, I have lots of really young friends and I\u2019ve got children\u201d. (Chaz, 54 and Elijah, 47) \u201cI\u2019m like the old woman in the shoe when it comes to Godchildren.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just do normal Christmas things,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t know – I never plan it. I could be dancing or I could be in the kitchen putting mashed potatoes on everybody\u2019s plates. That\u2019s how we do it. There\u2019s turkey and dressing and pumpkin pies. We\u2019re very traditional when it comes to celebrating the dinner. Everybody expects that.<\/p>\n

We have a long line and then everyone just takes their own, what they want. We always have a party though and decorate the house.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are nicer, you know, they\u2019re kind of somehow on their best behaviour. Christmas brings out that in people, I think. It\u2019s a great time of year to just try to stop what you\u2019ve been doing and concentrate on being happy with your family and your friends and doing things for people that are not as fortunate. It\u2019s a time where you feel the spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

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With a packed schedule to publicise the album, the chance to kick back with her loved ones is a Christmas wish for the Goddess of Pop. When we chat, she\u2019s been working in Paris and taken the chance to spend some rare quality time with her partner, music executive Andrew Edwards.<\/p>\n

Talking about her boyfriend, who is forty years her junior, she says, \u201cHe\u2019s a dear but I haven\u2019t hardly been able to see him. It\u2019s like the in and out, kiss, \u2018hi baby\u2019 and we get to have a dinner or something like that. But he\u2019s going to some fashion shows with me here, which is admirable because he isn\u2019t that interested, even though he loves fashion. He just went to hold my hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her other great love – music – is something that also came from family and Cher tells us it was by chance that her ex-husband, the late Sonny Bono, realised she had a gift.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was living with Sonny as a roommate, that\u2019s all. And one day he came home and I was in the back room making the bed and singing away and I see his head come around the corner and go, \u2018Is that you?\u2019. And I went, \u2018Yeah\u2019. In my family, everyone sang. It was like for me – doesn\u2019t everyone? And then he told Phil Spector, \u2018Cher sings\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recalling how one fateful night, one of the \u2018wall of sound\u2019 producer\u2019s singers\u2019 car broke down, she smiles, \u201cPhil said, \u2018Get out there.\u2019 And I started singing background – for a whole year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her rise to fame- in the 60s as part of duo Sonny and Cher is legendary, and our talk turns to the fact that it\u2019s been a remarkable 25 years since the release of her solo comeback single, \u2018Believe\u2019.<\/p>\n

Having come up with the idea for using a voice decoder on the track, she remembers hearing the hit for the first time in the studio. \u201cFor me, it was like heaven, because you didn\u2019t know it was me right away. And I thought, \u2018This is the best thing that ever happened!\u2019\u2019 And the vocal sound was so amazing. So different. I\u2019d never heard anything like that ever in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Away from the music business, Cher has also turned her attention to another very cool project – her ice cream brand, Cherlato.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are pictures of me in almost every country having ice cream,\u201d she laughs. \u201cIt never occurred to me to have my own company. But when I went to New Zealand, my sister brought me back ice cream and I went, \u2018What is this? Where is this person?\u2019 He was an Italian man – Giapo he makes things that are like a miracle. So I said, \u2018I\u2019d really like to do something with you.\u2019 Five years later, we\u2019ve got Cherlato and the response is amazing. I\u2019m telling you the ice cream is the best I\u2019ve ever tasted.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in the coming weeks, all work will be put to one side and Cher will be spreading the Christmas joy. \u201cI have a lot of free time and I see my friends and I go swimming and I work out. My time is taken up but I have lots of leisure time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Admitting that there are \u201ctwo parts\u201d to her personality, the flamboyant extrovert surprises us by admitting that won\u2019t necessarily mean it\u2019s party central at her homes in Miami and Malibu.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m not working, I\u2019m very quiet. I mean, not around my friends, but in public, I\u2019m quiet. But when I\u2019m working? I have really literally two parts to my personality; one that can get up on stage and one that would just sit in the background and not say anything, until I know somebody. I know so many actresses that are so shy. I know so many performers that throw up before they go on stage. So I think a lot of times shy people can become who they are by using art. So, for me it worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n