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Cher: Living The Moment

The icon gets candid about romance, motherhood and her new holiday album.

By Jeff Nelson in People

s Cher releases her first holiday record this fall (Christmas, out Oct. 20), she holds strong to her spirit of perseverance. "You either keep going or you stop," she says, "and I'll never give up."

Resilience -- and reinvention -- have long been at the center of Cher's enduring career. Born Cherilyn Sarkisian to actress-model Georgia Holt and truck driver George Sarkisian 77 years ago, she grew up poor outside Los Angeles but dreamed of Hollywood stardom. After years of hustling, she and first husband Sonny Bono found music fame in the 1960s with hits like "I Got You Babe" and "The Beat Goes On" before scoring TV success in the 1970s with their variety show.

But tensions came to a boil behind the scenes, and they divorced in 1975. "He pissed me off royally and hurt me," Cher recalls of their tumultuous marriage. Then, after their split, "one day he came into the kitchen at my house and said, 'Cher, I want to apologize. I realized that I hurt you in so many ways and I was wrong.' That went a long way for me." Despite her tough times with Bono, who died in 1998, "we had so much fun together," she says. "Working together was the easiest part of it, because we really made each other laugh. You can't fake that kind of stuff."

Over the years, Cher has continued to work with her romantic partners, from her late second husband, rocker Gregg Allman, to her current love, Alexander "A.E." Edwards, 37, who produced the track "Drop Top Sleigh Ride" on Christmas. The pair first met in early 2022 "for about 15 minutes" at a Paris Fashion Week event, Cher recalls, and a mutual friend gave him her number. "It was really shocking, because people just don't give out my number," Cher says. "I had been telling all my friends, "We're too old to go out with really younger men, and I will never fall in love on text.' So I did what I said not to do!"

Released on Oct. 20, Cher's first-ever yuletide collection Christmas is filled with Christmas classics and new songs as well. "I wanted to make a Cher Christmas album. It's really eclectic," she says of the record, which features collabs with Michael Bublé and rapper Tyga.

But Cher broke her rules for him "because he's just so special," she says. "I hate when people say people are special, but lots of people say I'm special, so I can say that he's special. No matter what happens, I love being with him. He makes me laugh, and we have fun. What I learned is that it's never too late. If you wrote out all the statistics, you would go, 'Well, this is doomed.' But we've been together a year, and if it was just a year, it would've been worth it. I've had the best time."

Edwards was also there for Cher to lean on last December when her mother died at age 96. "I'm happy that my mom's not in pain anymore, because my mom and I are so much alike when it comes to wanting to be vital -- my mom couldn't be that anymore. She was in pain, and I just couldn't bear it," Cher says. "I always think, 'I've got to call Mom...,' then I just stop. Sometimes [I talk to her] anyway. It makes me feel better."

And Cher is just a phone call away when her own kids, Elijah Blue Allman, 47, and Chaz Bono, 54 -- need her. "There's a sound in both my children's voices; if they say Mom,' you just know that you're going to make a trip," she says.

Her relationship with Elijah fueled headlines in September when a report surfaced that she allegedly hired four men to kidnap him from a New York City hotel room in an apparent intervention in November 2022; Elijah's estranged wife, Marieangela King, made the claim in divorce documents she filed last December. Regarding the abduction allegations, Cher says "that rumor is not true" and declines to comment further. But she confirms that the private family matter is related to her son's addiction issues. "I'm not suffering from any problem that millions of people in the United States aren't," Cher says of watching her son's yearslong struggles with substance abuse. "I'm a mother. This is my job -- one way or another, to try to help my children. You do anything for your children. Whenever you can help them, you just do it because that's what being a mother is. But it's joy, even with heartache -- mostly, when you think of your children, you just smile and you love them, and you try to be there for them."

  

ndeed, Cher has been balancing life in the spotlight with parenting for most of her life, and she's still learning. "You just keep trying," says the star, who has admitted "it wasn't easy" when Chaz came out as a transgender man in 2009, though their relationship is good today. "You have to kind of split yourself in two and do the best you can. Your work is your work, and you try to be there for your children, and you never feel like you're doing a good enough job."

Still, she finds joy in her work -- and hopes her new album offers the same to fans. "When people hear this, I want them to feel good," Cher says about Christmas, which features collaborations with pals including Stevie Wonder and Cyndi Lauper, covers of classics like Chuck Berry's "Run Rudolph Run" and original tracks such as the dance-pop single "DJ Play a Christmas song" (which is "like being at Studio 54, only Studio 54 at Christmas," she declares). Between recording, family commitments and her new ice-cream company Cherlato ("my favorite dessert!"), Cher is busy as ever before. And that's just the way she likes it. "Not so long ago Barbra Streisand said to me, 'Why are you still working??'" she says. "And I said, 'Because there will be a day when I can't.'"  

Barry Manilow: What I Know Now

As he achieves his Broadway dream at age 80, the singer gets candid about
his surprising career, his insecurities & how love has kept him grounded.

By Jeff Nelson in People

or nearly 50 years Barry Manilow's "Fanilows" have loved him for his timeless pop hits, from "I Write the Songs" and "Looks Like We Made It" to "Copacabana (at the Copa)." But the singer-songwriter has always set his sights on the Great White Way. "I never paid attention to pop music -- I never turned on pop radio," Manilow says over a Zoom call from his Palm Springs home. "My goal was to be a composer for a Broadway musical." Now, at age 80, he's finally achieving his lifelong dream.

Raised by his mom, Edna, and stepdad, Willie Murphy, in Brooklyn, Manilow (born Barry Alan Pincus) fell in love with show tunes as a child. "My stepfather brought home a whole bunch of albums that were like a stack of gold to me," he recalls. "I was 13 years old, and I memorized every note of all of those albums, especially the Broadway stuff."

After getting his start writing commercial jingles (for Band-Aid and State Farm, among others) and becoming a go-to New York City accompanist (for artists like Bette Midler), Manilow became a solo star in 1974 with his breakout single "Mandy" and has sold more than 85 million albums worldwide. But Manilow's theatrical compositions have never hit a Broadway stage -- until now.

On Oct. 18 Manilow and lyricist Bruce Sussman's new musical Harmony opened in previews. The show tells the true story of the Comedic Harmonists, a German-Jewish sextet popular in the 1930s that was forced to disband amid the rise of the Nazi party. "We don't want them to disappear the way the Nazis wanted them to disappear," he says of the show's protagonists. "They destroyed everything they had done -- all their records -- because three members were Jewish." Manilow and Sussman debuted Harmony in La Jolla, Calif., in 1997. "I couldn't be prouder or more excited. For a while it looked like it was never going to happen," Manilow says, "but I never gave up on it."

Here the legend -- who recently celebrated 45 years with his husband and manager, Garry Kief, 75 -- shares what he's learned about love and determination over the years. "I've had a charmed life," he says. "I'm a very lucky guy."

If an amazing opportunity presents itself, just say yes.
I made some demos of songs that I had written -- I was singing on my demos because I couldn't afford to [hire] a bona fide singer -- and Bell Records liked what they heard and offered me a record contract. People couldn't believe that I was the one that got the record contract. They were supposed to; I was just a piano player, arranger. When I told Bette [Midler], I said, "I just got a record contract." And she said, "Doing what?" I said, "Singing." She said, "Well, you don't sing." I said, "Yeah, I know but they think I do!"

It's okay to learn as you go.
The part that terrified me and that I wasn't very good at was performing. It never dawned on me that it would be me up there singing and communicating with an audience. That was the hard part. And I stunk. Yet the audiences didn't think so. They didn't care that I was awkward and stuttering. They liked the fact that I was a real guy up there. Little by little, because of these wonderful [fans], I figured out how to do it. But I still sometimes feel like a fraud since I never really wanted to do this.

A good partner can make you a better -- and nicer -- person.
When [I found success], my life exploded into a million pieces, and it took me a long time to pull it all back together again. I felt like it was getting bigger and bigger, and I was getting more and more frightened about fame. I just was not prepared. I was rude to people. I was an a--hole. One of the big events for me that pulled me together was meeting Garry. Having somebody like that grounds you. Suddenly I wasn't all alone in this crazy world. When you have a partner that you can go and cry to or yell at or celebrate with, that makes everything different. It makes the failures easier to take. Nobody could have gotten worse reviews than I have over the years. To have somebody with you makes it much easier.

When life leads you to the unexpected, follow.
Garry's daughter Kirsten [Kief, 47] adopted a little girl, and so I'm now a grandfather. I've never, ever thought about having a baby or having anything to do with [being] a father or any of that. And I'm watching this little girl -- she's 2 1/2 -- grow up and learn. This is a brand-new experience for me, and I am really enjoying it.

Don't take your health for granted.
When I hit this terrible number [80], I thought, "Oh God, this is it. I'm going to be walking with a walker next month." That's what seems to happen to everybody. You get to this age, and you get old. That doesn't seem to have hit me yet. I'm in great health. I still look pretty good. I don't have a big potbelly. I'm just a very fortunate guy. I've had a beautiful life."  

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