Cher for Vanity Fair

Dark Lady.

Photograph by Norman Jean Roy

Yes, we know it's a lot of smoke and mirrors (and tape and bubblegum and probably a few staples), but we've got to give it up to the old girl, she's in fine form. We're kind of inflexibly judgmental of Madonna and her rather disappointing entry into her later years, what with all the surgery and the dressing too young. But with Cher? Well. Isn't that how you expected Cher to age?

How fabulously Cher is that dress?

Being Cher, she shot her mouth off:

On not being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: “Sonny was a good writer, and we started something that no one else was doing. We were weird hippies before there was a name for it, when the Beatles were wearing sweet little haircuts and round-collared suits…. We influenced a generation, and it’s like: What more do you want?”

On her daughter turned son, Chaz: “If I woke up tomorrow in a guy’s body, I would just kick and scream and cry and ****ing rob a bank, because I cannot see myself as anything but who I am—a girl. I would not take it as well as Chaz has. I couldn’t imagine it.” While Cher remains a proud mother, she admits to Smith that she still gets confused: “She’s a very smart girl—boy! This is where I get into trouble. My pronouns are ****ed. I still don’t remember to call her ‘him.’”

Of her secret to remaining in the spotlight: “I feel like a bumper car. If I hit a wall, I’m backing up and going in another direction. And I’ve hit plenty of ****ing walls in my career. But I’m not stopping. I think maybe that’s my best quality: I just don’t stop.”

On her feelings for Sonny and their tumultuous marriage: “He told me when we were together, ‘One day you are going to leave me. You are going to go on and do great things.’ … I wouldn’t have left him if he hadn’t had such a tight grip—such a tight grip.” Cher tells Smith that Sonny treated her “more like a golden goose than like his wife…. I forgive him, I think. He hurt me in so many ways, but there was something. He was so much more than a husband—a terrible husband, but a great mentor, a great teacher…. If he had agreed to just disband Cher Enterprises and start all over again, I would have never ever left. Just split it down the middle, 50-50.”

On her family and drugs: “It’s weird, because both of my children had the same drug problems as their fathers—same drug of choice. My father was a heroin addict, and my sister’s father was an alcoholic. But it jumped us…. I didn’t not do drugs because of moral issues. I tried a couple of drugs, but I never felt good out of control. I have the constitution of a fruit fly. I can’t do coffee, but I can do Dr Pepper.”

On aging: “I think Meryl [Streep] is doing it great. The stupid bitch is doing it better than all of us! But I don’t like it. It’s getting in my way. I have a job to do, and it’s making my job harder.”

“I’ve been screaming at the top of my lungs at my family, ‘Work out! Work out! Old age is coming!’ At some point you will need the strength. Who would have ever thought you would get this old?”

We really hope Cher lives to be 90 because the senility is going to be hilarious.



And big ups to Jonathan Waud, the chiseled blond on the right in the above picture. You might remember him from Season 2 of Bravo's Make Me a Supermodel:

You might also remember he didn't win Make Me a Supermodel. The fact that he has a better career than anyone else who ever appeared on the show might give you some indication of why Make Me a Supermodel appears to be no more. Although we miss the show. It was at least a little better than Tyra's Three Ring Circus.

The December issue of Vanity Fair will be available on newsstands on Thursday, November 4th.

[Photo Credit: vanityfair.com, RickDayNYC.com]

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Labels: Cher, Jonathan Waud, Magazine Cover/Editorial, Vanity Fair