Cher

My mom said to me, 'You know, sweetheart, one day you should settle down and marry a rich man. I said, "Mom, I am a rich man."

Don’t buy into the idea that women aren’t strong enough to do anything they want on their own.

You don’t pay bucks to stand and look at someone. They’ve got to deliver something.

Cher (born Cherilyn Sarkisian on May 20, 1946) is an American recording artist, actress, director, and record producer.

Quotes

• Women are the real architects of society.[1]
• You don't have to be smart to act — look at the outgoing president of the United States.
  • Remark (December 1988), reported in Brewer's Cinema (1995)

• I think men are the coolest, but you don't really need them to live. My mom said to me, 'You know, sweetheart, one day you should settle down and marry a rich man. I said, "Mom, I am a rich man."
  • 1996 interview with Jane Pauley for Dateline, quoted in "Taylor Swift Referenced This Iconic Cher Quote In The "You Need To Calm Down" Video" Bustle (June 17, 2019)

• Follow this you bitches.
  • Monologue - The Farewall Tour (2005)

• Try to be in as many relationships as you can.
  • A tip to happiness, as quoted in an interview with Gene Simmons, on extra TV (2008)

• I love having boyfriends. A girl can wait for the right man to come along – but in the meantime that doesn’t mean she can’t have a wonderful time with all the wrong ones.
  • "Cher Genius", an interview in You magazine, the Mail on Sunday (UK) newspaper (28 November 2010), interviewed by Elaine Lipworth in Las Vegas.

• Don’t buy into the idea that women aren’t strong enough to do anything they want on their own.
  • ‘"Cher Genius", You magazine, the Mail on Sunday (UK) newspaper (28 November 2010)

• "WTF is MDNA?
  • Tweet on Twitter, mentioned in an interview Cher talks about the "WTF is MDNA? (2013)

• You don’t pay bucks to stand and look at someone. They’ve got to deliver something...And I’ve worked my whole life to keep my strength in my body. There are 20-year-old girls who can’t do what I do.
  • On how plastic surgery is not enough to sustain relevance and vitality in "Cher at 74: 'There are 20-year-old girls who can’t do what I do’" in The Guardian (2020 Dec 14)

• You know, we had such a strange relationship. The day we got our divorce, he grabbed me, bent me backwards and kissed me, and we were hysterical. I couldn’t keep angry with him for some reason. I had a lot of anger, but I couldn’t stay angry.
  • On her marriage to Sonny Bono and their divorce in "Cher at 74: 'There are 20-year-old girls who can’t do what I do’" in The Guardian (2020 Dec 14)

• I love standing on the stage and singing. The feeling you have in your body when you sing.
  • On what motivates Cher to perform in "Cher at 74: 'There are 20-year-old girls who can’t do what I do’" in The Guardian (2020 Dec 14)

• A lot of the biggest entertainers are shy. I’ve always been shy. But once I’m on stage and get hold of an audience, I know I can bring the room together as one. No matter how many thousands of people, I can bring it to where they are all friends. If you have a heartbreak or a sickness, for 90 minutes I can make you forget.
  • On not being as extroverted as people might think in "Cher at 74: 'There are 20-year-old girls who can’t do what I do’" in The Guardian (2020 Dec 14)

Quotations about Cher

Music industry

• Beyoncé: "I love that in the seventies Cher and Diana Ross looked like superstars and never played it safe. When they were onstage, they gave you drama—and I love drama."

• Christina Aguilera:
  • "I have always had tremendous respect for her. She is a woman who did everything before anyone else did it. She is an icon and she inspired me through some of my career. We've had similar costumes too!"
  • [Describing her first meeting with Cher] I went in for a dance rehearsal on the Sony lot. I had sweat pants on and my little flat shoes, and my son on my hip. The studio head came up to me and said, 'Oh, you've got to meet Cher.' She was on another soundstage rehearsing for her Vegas show. I told him I wasn’t dressed to meet Cher. I needed high heels. I needed to feel good about myself to meet Cher."
  • "I had told the studio head to stalk and beg Cher to do the movie [Burlesque]. I told him to tell her that I was such a big fan that I would drink her bath water if she did the movie. So, when we were introduced, I said: 'Yes, I'm the one who wants to drink your bath water.'"
  • "Cher and I had more personal talks about love and relationships. She has been through the gamut of marriages and divorces, and I consider her a wise woman. She's someone I look to as a mentor, both personally and professionally."

• Debbie Harry: "[On meeting Cher in the corridor of the BBC] She just walked past me and said, 'You go, girl!' All I could say was, 'Wow.' It was like a blessing from the pope!"

• Gwen Stefani: "[Cher] proved there's nothing she cannot do. She's a role model for showing us how to be strong and true to ourselves [and] a woman who is truly the definition of the word Icon."

• Lady Gaga: "[On the outfit Cher wears in the music video for the song "If I Could Turn Back Time"] I dress like that! That's my everyday look. Maybe just sort of subliminally when I was younger, without even realizing it, one day I knew that [Cher] was the kind of woman I would become."

• Pink: "[On writing for Cher's Closer to the Truth album] It's such an honor. I finally feel like a songwriter. And I'm such a fan."

• Rob Halford of Judas Priest: "She has the most beautiful voice with a unique, rich texture that sets her apart. There's only one Cher—in her voice, her image, her humanitarianism, and her philanthropy. Her incredible longevity in music, coupled with the staying power she’s demonstrated, is truly remarkable. To remain an icon with such influence and respect is no small feat. She’s an extraordinary woman. I've always wanted to sit down with her, share a cup of tea or a meal, and just talk about life. She's so sincere, sweet, and genuine in everything she does."

• Shania Twain: "She is the most diverse artist ever. I loved watching her go through all these evolutions in her life. She's funny. She's great at everything she does."

• Tori Amos: "Cher has been able to show people that as she ages, she’s still sexy and sensual."

Film industry

• Drew Barrymore: "She's strong and comedic and incredibly brave, but shows vulnerability. I think she's the epitome of rock & roll."

• Meryl Streep:
  • "My earliest impressions of her were when I was a freshman in high school, and 'I Got You Babe' was number one. I knew she was also high school age, but she had such a deep, velvet, mature voice. I sounded like Tweety bird at that age. And her hair was like a dark curtain that swung and shone, and she had one crooked tooth that made her even more perfect."
  • "You couldn't watch [The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour] and not recognize her natural talent as an actress. She made everybody else on TV look like they were trying too hard, pushing. She was so immediate, free, and she was canny about landing the jokes. Skilled, but it was invisible."
  • "Moonstruck was when she showed how completely effortless her fully rounded talent was—funny, heartbreaking, inimitable—no one else could've done it that way. She owned that part. She jumped out of the screen. It was like we'd been waiting for her, and round the corner she came: 'Yeah, and I can do this, too!'"
  • "When I think of Cher I think of her giant heart. How open it is. How strong it is. How battered it is, and how she leads with her heart. She just puts it all out there."

• Nicolas Cage: "Cher is a person with a huge heart, and that really comes through not only in her music but as a screen performer. She has an extraordinary blend of strength and vulnerability on-camera."

• Sarah Paulson: "I smelt Cher. I smelt the back of Cher's head ... Because I really love Cher; I think a lot of people love her for her music which I do, but I think she's one of the great actresses, I really do. So I was in her presence and I really wanted to go up to her but I was too nervous, so instead I went to the back of her and sort of pushed my nose between her hairs, parted it, and just hung out there for the count of, 'One-one thousand, two-one thousand'. She was about to turn around so I jumped and went back."

• Whoopi Goldberg: "Elvis. Sinatra. Cher. There have been a handful of entertainers who are instantly recognizable by just one name. She not only marches to the beat of her own drum honey, she is a one woman band. In a word—she's Cher."

• Zendaya: "Thank you, Cher. Thank you for being an advocate, for being an ally, for painting the way for so many humans of all kinds to live in and speak their truth and to have the courage to be as daring and as open-hearted as you. Cher once said, 'You should never be inhibited by what people expect you to do.' And those are words I hope we can all learn to live by."

Fashion industry

• Marc Jacobs: "[Working with Cher] has been a dream of mine for a very, very long time. [Growing up,] other boys were out fascinated by other things, [but] I was like, no, I'd really much rather see what Cher's wearing this week."