The singer on making people happy, saving an elephant, and living in Trumps America
The Goddess of Pop is in town. And what an entrance she makes. Two-tone black-and-white beret, matching jacket, skinny jeans, black boots, black mask, and an elephant-shaped knuckle-duster. She looks the ultimate in revolutionary chic Cher Guevara. She is not in London to promote a record (100 million sold and counting) or a film (she won the best actress Oscar in 1988 for Moonstruck); she is here to talk about rescuing the worlds loneliest elephant from a zoo in Pakistan and flying him to a sanctuary in Cambodia. Cherilyn Sarkisian, aged 74, has never been predictable.
We meet in a London hotel, close to the BBCs Broadcasting House, where she has been eulogising elephants. She is masked, I am masked, and we sit at opposite ends of the room. Its such a strange world were living in, I say how are you coping? And she is straight off into a turbo-charged rant. How am I taking it? There are no words that describe it. And in my country the president doesnt believe it has anything to do with him. He doesnt think he has any responsibility to help us.
How has Donald Trump changed the culture of the United States? Its toxic, she says. People who just disagreed with each other before are now enemies. I hate to even call him a president because all he does is watch TV.
Cher in London: I hope [Trump ends up in prison]. Ill be dancing around. Photograph: Neil Mockford/GC Images
In October, Cher recorded a song for Joe Bidens presidential campaign, Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe, a reworked version of a number from the 1940s musical Cabin in the Sky. I tell her I love it and ask if Biden has said anything to her about it. Well, yes, I think he loves it, too. She pauses. I said if Trump cant be in the White House, hes going to burn it down. Hes trying to block Joe at every moment. Hes the most vindictive person Ive ever witnessed. I think hes fighting so hard because hes going to be prosecuted when he gets out of the White House. Could he end up in prison? Oh, I hope so. Ill be dancing around.
When she talks about Trump she sounds traumatised. She tries not to mention his name. I hate him, she says. Have you hated anybody like this before? No, in my whole life, never. I pretty much disliked Bush when he started those wars, and I could say for a minute it was touch and go for hate. But the one thing I know is he loves America and Trump doesnt.
We move to more positive territory the liberation of Kaavan the elephant. Cher is just back from visiting him in Cambodia. She says he is eating well, readjusting happily, and has already got a couple of girlfriends. If you saw Kaavan before we took him to this sanctuary, he was a different animal. In a matter of minutes, he completely changed. It was amazing to watch.
Cher sings as she campaigns for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at an early vote rally in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images
It was Chers Twitter followers who first told her about Kaavan, a 36-year-old Asian bull elephant living in dreadful conditions at the zoo in Islamabad. There was no roof on the shed, no water in his pool and he had no toys to play with. He would stand in his tiny shed with his head facing the wall. You never saw a more depressed-looking pachyderm. The more Cher discovered about Kaavan, the more determined she became to rescue him.
She remembered that, four years earlier, she had met Mark Cowne, Bob Geldofs manager, and that they had bonded over their love of elephants. She rang him out of the blue. I said: Hi, do you remember me, its Cher, would you like to go to Pakistan and save an elephant? He said sure. They started the charity Free the Wild, and masterminded a plan to free Kaavan, who was relocated to Cambodia at an estimated cost of $400,000 ( 329,000). A Pakistani court ordered the zoos closure last May.
Cher has barely started with her animal liberation plans. Were working on a gorilla right now, and another elephant. Did she grow up with animals? Yes, Ive had many dogs, and I have cats now. She lives in Malibu, Los Angeles. I live in a particularly beautiful spot, but the fires are just killing us. A fire came right up my house and burned the side of it. I was so lucky. And suddenly were back with Trump; she cant help herself. Its climate change. And he wouldnt give us any money for it. He hates us. He hates California. He doesnt have one drop of goodness in him.
‘We worked side by side for 11 years and I ended up with nothing. I worked really hard for that money, and it never occurred to me that Sonny would take it’
Much of Chers recent life has been about campaigning whether politically, to support abused animals or helping disadvantaged people through the pandemic. Her charity Cher Cares, which she runs with Dr Irwin Redlener, the founding director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at New Yorks Columbia University, is directing resources to disadvantaged communities to help them through the Covid crisis.
If it wasnt for the pandemic she would be playing in Las Vegas, as she has done since 2008. Is it true she gets paid $60 million a year for Vegas? Wait. Say this again, please. Im expecting her to tell me not to be so ridiculous, but she is simply considering the figure. It sounds like a good number, but I dont know the figure. I know I go to work and I like it and Im getting paid well, but also I have an overhead you cant believe. I have 100 people on staff. Cher is worth an estimated $360 million.
She really has had an incredible life. Cher was born in 1946, her mother the southern beauty Georgia Holt, a bohemian actor/singer-songwriter who got married six times, to five different men. Holt largely brought up Cher and her half-sister Georganne as a single mother. Cher did not meet her father, an American-Armenian truck driver called John Sarkisian, until she was 11. He was charming like you cannot believe, she says. But he had some larceny in him. He had a criminal past.
Her mother was loving and hot-tempered. Sometimes she hit her (My mom was from the south and it was kinda the thing), but usually she championed her. Cher struggled with dyslexia. My mom was my biggest fan. She said it doesnt matter, school is not important. And I said: Yeah Mom, but I cant even see numbers they look like little scratchy things to me. She said: When you grow up, youre going to have somebody else to do numbers for you.