Cher: The Memoir - Part One (with Dominick Pupa and TMomZ)

Summary

Glamorous Trash: A Celebrity Memoir Podcast – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Cher: The Memoir - Part One (with Dominick Pupa and TMomZ)
Release Date: November 19, 2024
Host: Chelsea Devantez
Guests: Dominick Pupa and TMomZ

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Introduction to the Episode

Chelsea Devontez opens the episode by introducing the podcast's focus on dissecting celebrity memoirs, blending glamour with the underlying "trash." This week, the spotlight is on Cher's memoir, aptly titled The Memoir. Chelsea expresses her admiration for Cher, considering her an icon, legend, and personal hero. She humorously anticipates surpassing other legendary figures like Barbra Streisand in the forthcoming part two of Cher's memoir.

Background and Previous Works

Chelsea highlights that Cher previously authored My First Time, a whimsical take on her early experiences. This memoir is not being forgotten, as Chelsea plans to reference past discussions from that book to provide a comprehensive understanding of Cher's life journey.

Merchandise Announcement

Before delving into the memoir, Chelsea briefly announces the availability of Glamorous Trash merchandise, including candles and themed cards, in collaboration with loyal listeners. She emphasizes the limited-time availability and the thoughtful scents designed to resonate with the podcast's vibe.

Content Warning

Chelsea issues a content warning, mentioning that the episode discusses sensitive topics such as suicide, drug use, abuse, and sexual assault. She advises listeners to exercise caution while tuning in.

Analyzing Cher's Memoir

Cher’s Childhood and Family Dynamics

Chelsea begins by reading a poignant excerpt from Cher's memoir, revealing her early life complexities. Cher discusses her time in a Catholic children's home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a revelation that surprises both Chelsea and Dominick Pupa.

• Dominick Pupa (00:07): "That will last a lifetime."

The discussion unveils Cher’s tumultuous upbringing, marked by her mother's multiple marriages, instances of abandonment, and generational struggles with addiction.

• TMomZ (06:29): "Yeah, I felt the same way."

Cher portrays her mother, Georgia, as a resilient yet perpetually unstable figure, juggling numerous relationships that left Cher with a fragmented sense of security.

Early Relationships and Influences

Chelsea reflects on Cher’s initial memoir and contrasts it with the depth found in The Memoir. She reveals that Cher's communication style in this memoir appears slightly more restrained, likely due to the involvement of multiple ghostwriters and editors.

• Dominick Pupa (06:08): "It is very much in her voice. [...] the humor's there speaks is in there."

The guests discuss the authenticity of Cher’s voice within the memoir, acknowledging that while her humor persists, the narrative feels more controlled compared to her previous works.

Cher’s Romantic Entanglements

The conversation shifts to Cher’s early romantic life, including her infamous encounter with Warren Beatty at the age of 15. Cher recounts a seemingly consensual yet power-imbalanced relationship, reflecting societal norms of the time regarding younger women and older men.

• Cher’s Memoir (33:08): "Cher, you had a rough childhood."

TMomZ and Dominick emphasize the complexities and inappropriate dynamics of such relationships, highlighting Cher's resilience in navigating them.

Career Beginnings and Phil Spector’s Influence

Cher’s first foray into the music industry under the mentorship of Phil Spector is dissected. Despite Phil’s later notorious reputation, the memoir portrays her early admiration and the valuable lessons she gleaned from him.

• Dominick Pupa (48:07): "It’s thrilling and chilling to read her accounts of these sessions."

They discuss the duality of Phil Spector’s influence—both professional guidance and personal challenges—and how Cher managed to extract positivity from a volatile environment.

Meeting and Marrying Sonny Bono

One of the most significant relationships in Cher’s life, her partnership with Sonny Bono, is explored in depth. The memoir reveals their deep bond formed through mutual support amidst personal and professional chaos.

• Dominick Pupa (42:36): "She needed someone in that way."

Their union is depicted as both a romantic and stabilizing force for Cher, providing her with much-needed support against her chaotic upbringing.

Challenges in Marriage and Personal Struggles

Despite their strong bond, Cher and Sonny’s marriage faces numerous challenges, including financial instability, Sonny’s infidelities, and increasing control over Cher’s personal freedoms. Chelsea reads a particularly intense scene where Cher stands up to Sonny’s aggressive behavior.

• Cher’s Memoir (56:07): "If you ever touch me like this again, I will leave your ass."

This moment marks Cher’s assertion of independence and refusal to succumb to further emotional abuse, reflecting her growth and empowerment.

Professional Success and Influence of Bob Mackie

Cher’s collaboration with fashion designer Bob Mackie is highlighted as a turning point in her career. Mackie’s designs played a crucial role in defining Cher’s iconic style, blending glamour with boldness.

• Dominick Pupa (60:18): "Bob Mackie created these sweatshirts that looked like turnips."

Their partnership is celebrated for its creativity and lasting impact on Cher’s public persona, solidifying her status as a fashion icon.

Reflections and Personal Insights

Throughout the discussion, Chelsea, Dominick, and TMomZ offer personal reflections on Cher’s journey, drawing parallels with their own experiences and admiring her resilience and authenticity. They commend Cher for her ability to stay true to herself despite numerous setbacks and challenges.

• Chelsea Devontez (112:08): "She reminds me and herself of Cher."

The guests express how Cher’s honesty and vulnerability in her memoir provide inspiration and a sense of relatability, especially regarding overcoming adversity and maintaining one’s identity.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, the guests assess Cher’s memoir using a "Book Dull Test," evaluating Cher’s vulnerability, the entertainment value of the memoir, and its impact on their lives.

• Dominick Pupa (106:32): "She could have gone hog wild on her, too."
• TMomZ (112:29): "Every time I read a story about a woman that's been able to figure things out."

They conclude that while the memoir had its flaws and moments of disjointed storytelling, it remains a captivating and honest portrayal of Cher’s life, filled with essential details that appeal both to long-time fans and newcomers.

Notable Quotes

• Chelsea Devontez (26:24): "Let me tell you something. If you ever touch me like this again, I will leave your ass, and it'll be the last time you ever see me."

• Dominick Pupa (56:07): "You shouldn't have to sacrifice a great experience to get a great deal." (Note: This appears to be part of an advertisement and might be excluded from content-focused summaries.)

• TMomZ (46:20): "Whenever I hear that, I have no sympathy. I have no empathy for men who say, but I was afraid you were gonna leave me."

Final Remarks

Chelsea concludes the episode by encouraging listeners to support independent bookstores through Libro fm and promotes upcoming merchandise and shows by herself and Dominick Pupa. She expresses eager anticipation for the release of part two of Cher’s memoir, promising deeper insights and continued exploration of Cher’s multifaceted life.

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Note: This summary focuses exclusively on the core content and discussions surrounding Cher's memoir, omitting advertisements, introductions, and outros to maintain relevance and coherence for those who have not listened to the episode.

Transcript

[Chelsea Devontez]

The holidays are about spending time with your loved ones and creating magical memories.

[Dominic Pupa]

That will last a lifetime.

[T Mom Z]

So whether it's family and friends you.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Haven'T seen in a while or those who you see all the time, share.

[T Mom Z]

Holiday magic this season with an ice cold Coca Cola. Copyright 2024 the Coca Cola Company.

[Chelsea Devontez]

This.

[Dominic Pupa]

Episode is brought to you by Disney's.

[Chelsea Devontez]

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[Dominic Pupa]

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[Chelsea Devontez]

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[Dominic Pupa]

Now the kingdom awaits.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Welcome to Glamorous Trash. This is a celebrity memoir podcast where we dig into all of the glamour and all of the trash. If you have ever referenced Mariah Carey in therapy, then this might be the podcast for you. I'm your host, Chelsea devontez. I'm a TV writer, comedian, filmmaker, author, and sometimes I'm in stuff, too. And this week we are book clubbing the memoir of icon, legend and personal hero of mine, Cher. Her memoir is called the Memoir, and this, my friends, is Part one. Part two is said to be coming out next year, and part one alone is 400 pages. So she's fully pulling a babs. She is. I hope part two is like 600 pages and she somehow outdoes Barbra Streisand. And personally, if you're going to make your memoir that long, I kind of love the choice of splitting it in two. Now, something very funny to me before we begin is that everyone is sort of forgetting or pretending that Cher didn't already write a memoir of sorts. It's a book called My First Time, which is a gimmicky device where she tells you her first time doing things and she tells her life story. We covered that book on the podcast in one of, like, my earliest episodes. So I'm going to be calling back to some of this stuff in that book as well. And before we get started, I have to tell you, we are selling Glamorous Trash merch this year, and it's only available for purchase for a couple more weeks. It is two candles. One is a candle that says my higher power is finding another woman who is down to fuck some shit up together. And the other candle says Psychic Moments. And it's an intention candle. You know, where you set your intention when you light it. And then every time you blow it out, you make a wish because why Not. And there's also a card for sale that says a woman who needs to be checked on is checking on another woman. And inside the card, it says issue. Okay, I know for me personally.

[T Mom Z]

No.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Who is. We're all a woman who needs to be checked on. You can get the bundle at a discounted price. You can just buy one candle. You can just buy the card at the time of this recording. There is a very, very small amount left. So click the show notes to get your candles or your card. It's only for sale for a couple of weeks, and it is a candle collab with one of our OG cookies and listeners of this podcast. And I promise you, the scents of the candles are divine. Now we're getting into the episode. One more thing. There will be talk of suicide, drug use, abuse, and sexual assault, so always take care when listening. And now, as we prepare to dive in, I'm kind of trembling at the thought of what clip we're gonna choose from Cher to begin. There's too many.

[Dominic Pupa]

I don't know.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay, well, here we go. Picked up a boy, just saw the mobile gave him a ride filling with a hot meal. I was 16, he was 21. Rode with us to Memphis and papa would have shot him if he knew what he done. Today I am book clubbing Cher's memoir with two very special guests. You know her from this podcast, the episodes she's been on. You know her as my mom. It is T Mom Z. And also my guest, Dominic Pupa, who is a comedian, nightlife act, and drama queen. He co hosts the hit podcast Fixing Famous People, appears weekly on Lifetime's Teresa Caputo, Raising Spirits, his acclaimed holiday show, Dom We Now Are Gay Apparel is a can't miss annual staple performed around the country. By the time this episode is dropping, you will be able to get tickets. And his bio, his official bio states no one in the Bronx loves Cher more than him. No one.

[Dominic Pupa]

Correct.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Wow.

[T Mom Z]

Hello.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Hello, you both.

[Dominic Pupa]

That's longer than Cher's book, that bio. I really should. I really should cut that in half. Are we done?

[Chelsea Devontez]

You gave us the good. Okay, so I want to tell everyone how I came to have you two special guests. So first, one of these people here today said they would disown me, stop speaking to me, and kick me out of the family if I didn't have them on. And that was Dominic Pupa. Dominic was like, I'll kill you. So, Dom, did you have to poison any drag queens to get here? I mean, you were. You sent me a text. It was the Most beautiful text I've ever received. It was like, this is destiny. Are you going to accept?

[Dominic Pupa]

I wanted to remind you that I was the only choice to come on and talk about this book in case it had slipped your mind.

[Chelsea Devontez]

No, it hadn't. And I love hearing you talk about Cher on fixing famous people. So, like, I'm excited to get into it. And, Ma, your first episode with me was Jane Fonda. You also did Elizabeth Taylor. But on both those episodes, my mom said to me, I wish I was doing Cher's memoir. And I had to say, her next one's not out yet. And Cher had been announcing this memoir in little toilet filled emoji tweets since 2020. Since 2020, she's like, I have a memoir coming. And in 2021, she was like, Ugh, writing's hard. And in 2022, she's like, still coming. And then I was like, this book's never coming. So can y'all believe that this is here?

[Dominic Pupa]

I can't. I can't.

[T Mom Z]

Yeah. Is. Is there a ghostwriter?

[Chelsea Devontez]

1,000%. No.

[T Mom Z]

Just had to make sure.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Well, Dom, what do you think?

[T Mom Z]

I thought maybe it was just an editor that was helping her.

[Dominic Pupa]

It's somebody. I mean, only because she's dyslexic. But as I was reading through it, it is very much in her voice. So whoever edited or ghost wrote or assisted her, they nailed her. Like, they gave it. It feels like an elevated version of her voice, but it's her. The humor's there speaks is in there.

[T Mom Z]

Yeah, I felt the same way.

[Chelsea Devontez]

You felt the same way. Okay. I'm. I'm a little different than you both. I. So in the first book, she takes, like, a page to apologize to her co author, who she's like, I put you through hell. It was so hard to write this. I wanted to quit. Like, and that book is short, so, like, I cannot. I'm like, how the hell did we get 400 pages from her? She is so funny. Her tweets are the funniest thing I've ever read in my life. I did not feel we got that part of her voice in this book as much as I had wished. And I have to say, I looked it up. Cher did an interview where she said there were actually three separate ghostwriters on the book. One ghostwriter did the majority of the book. Then she felt it wasn't her. Then two other ghostwriters came in, and then the book editor spent an entire week at Cher's house and that the majority of the Book was completed in two months, even though the book had been, you know, in the works for years. So this makes perfect sense. Knowing Cher now. Dom, do you feel like Cher's very, very funny self was fully in the book? Because I felt it was a little bit like maybe an as told to memoir where she got like pretty serious. Trying to go back through these memories and get all the details right.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah, I mean, I, I did sense her in there. I, I felt her humor throughout the book. And a lot of the stuff that I highlighted in the book were her jokes, like, were evidence of her being there, which I liked. And every time she would swear, some, not too excessively, but anytime she would swear or tell a joke, I knew that she was in on this process fully. I understand what you're saying, though, about that. Sort of, you know, all those, those misspelled tweets, those emoji filled tweets, those are definitely like the burning fires of passion that she gets in the middle of the night when she's got to wake up and do something. This was definitely a, A more corralled version of her. I could definitely. I would agree with that.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Sure. Okay.

[Dominic Pupa]

Because this is a historical document, basically.

[Chelsea Devontez]

You can tell she's like, I am historically putting my life down, like 100%. This is like the bottom.

[Dominic Pupa]

This is the New testament for people like me. This is the new Testament. I can't believe we just said it.

[Chelsea Devontez]

We're sick.

[Dominic Pupa]

But it truly is. Because, you know, my first time, no off or anyone else who worked on it, it's. I don't want to say the word garbage, but I have said it because when I read it, I was so disappointed. It just felt so rushed and it felt like she's unexpectedly at the apex of her career, in her 50s. So let's rush this book out right away. And I think they thought it was gimmicky and a good idea. I felt like it was pretty flat. This was a gift. I mean, and so detailed that you felt. I felt, when I was reading it. This is someone who understands not only her historical significance, but her significance to fans, some of whom have been following her for 50, 60 years. And this was a gift. I mean, she. In every scene she sets, she tells you what outfit she was wearing. I felt like that was for me personally. And as I was reading it, I'm like, who cares about this? I thought, oh, I. I care about this deeply, actually. So thank you for that.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Mariah Carey does that too. And I was like, yeah, actually, the only scene painting I Ever want is what you're wearing. What did you think of the book overall?

[T Mom Z]

Well, first, just let me say I didn't read the first memoir.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, it's fine. Trust me. It's not.

[T Mom Z]

And I probably won't.

[Dominic Pupa]

You didn't miss anything.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Some of it's lies that we're going to talk about in this book, but go ahead.

[T Mom Z]

What did I think of this book? It was a serious memoir, and it made me feel like I had to study because there was just so much detail and so much content. But I loved it. And I know how raunchy she can be and what a potty mouth she has, and I read that through the whole story. I mean, I read between the lines. I could see her going off, but just trying to be a little bit more toned down for the book and for the gravity of the book.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, yeah.

[T Mom Z]

But I mean, she has some of my favorite raunchy quotes so ever.

[Chelsea Devontez]

She has some of the most iconic quotes of all time. Okay. So I want to start just first reading the author's note, which is important to the story and also for this episode. She says this memoir is based on my sometimes imperfect memory. In this memoir, I will refer to my son Chaz as Chaz. So it's C, H A Z as Chas. C H A s the name he went by during the years covered in this book. Chaz has granted his blessing for this usage. In the next volume, at the appropriate point, I will refer to my son as Chaz. So that's her saying she will use C, H, A Z and he him pronouns when Chaz's transition happens in the timeline. And before that, we'll be using C H A S as Chaz and she, her pronouns and maybe they pronouns within this book. And that Chaz gave permission for this. So I thought that was a lovely way of addressing that. And I really like some of the Chaz stuff that she pulls through here. That's like, gonna start Chaz's own journey. But this book, okay, it's so much so I'm gonna put our conversation into buckets. I'm gonna think childhood will be one, then Sunny, then the divorce, then David Geffen, Gregory Allman, and then Cher. Just Cher. What do we think? Cause, I mean, there's so much in here, I'm actually like, scarcity. You know what I mean?

[Dominic Pupa]

We can handle it. We can handle it.

[T Mom Z]

I'm not afraid. You're driving.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay, well, here we go. So I want to read page one. Somewhere in the back of a drawer in my Mom's house was hidden, a small black and white photograph of me that I'd never laid eyes on. She couldn't bring herself to share with me and broke down each time it was even mentioned to the day she died. The pain of this moment in that picture taken in 1947, was as raw as ever. And the woman later known as Georgia Holt couldn't bear to be reminded of it. So her mom changed her name to Georgia Holt. And then she wrote, from what I've learned. The tiny square of celluloid depicted me as a baby clinging unhappily to the rails of my crib in a Catholic children's home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It was taken through a small viewing window by my tearful 21 year old mom at that time still known as Jackie Jean, her birth name. A singer from rural Arkansas working for tips as a waitress in an all night diner. I said, what? Had Cher ever told us this? That she was essentially in a home as an orphan for a portion of time?

[Dominic Pupa]

No, I never heard that before.

[T Mom Z]

It sounded like quite a long time. Yeah, because she went in, she couldn't walk. And when she was able to get her away from the nuns, which was a fight, she was walking. That's probably a year at least maybe.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I mean, Cher has really protected her mom and really protected Sunny for as far as I can tell and the materials I've taken in and in this book, it feels like she finally decided to tell the truth in that like her birth dad convinced her mom to put her in this home and then abandoned them and never came back. And her mom didn't know how to get her out and never had the money to get her out until her mom like meets a rich man and is like, can you walk in and like yell at the nuns and like, give me back my baby. So Cher like grew up chaotically.

[Dominic Pupa]

I mean, she's alluded to her childhood before. Seeming almost like a military childhood. She talked about moving around a lot, but the detail with which she talked about all the places she lived, moved to, all the husbands that her mother had, which was more. I knew that Georgia had been married a bunch of times. I didn't know it was as many as is told in the book.

[T Mom Z]

She can't remember six or seven or eight.

[Dominic Pupa]

She doesn't even know how many times her own parents were married. She can't remember if it was twice or three times.

[T Mom Z]

Twice or three times.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

See, Chelsea.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Oh, you're right, mom, you're right. You know what? You're an angel. So we go through. She starts at her grandparents, to her grandma, to her mom, to her, like. We go through every detail of her family lineage, and she, like, lives with other people a million times. Her mom has a thousand marriages, two to three times with her own biological father who leaves her in an orphanage and abandons them. And then I think, like, 10 years later, 12 years later, she's gonna marry him again. It's insane.

[T Mom Z]

A lot of abandonment.

[Chelsea Devontez]

A lot of abandonment. Let's just talk about a few more of Georgia's marriages real quick. My personal favorite was when her mom, Geor Georgia, married a man with the last name Harper Collins.

[Dominic Pupa]

I can't. What. I. I started going backwards and forwards in the book to justify that. I even went to Google for a minute. I was like, wait a second. I'm like, there's no.

[Chelsea Devontez]

There's no.

[Dominic Pupa]

There's no way she's married to a publishing per. I mean, she's not, but it was just so bizarre.

[Chelsea Devontez]

So that's just a. Because this book is published by HarperCollins, and she had a stepfather, like, a millionaire stepfather for, like, four months when life was good. And his last name, it was Joseph harpercollin. I can't believe they're not related. Okay. And then my other. I'm not gonna say favorite, but the man she calls Daddy and is, like, he was the one who was most. Like, my dad was extremely violent and abusive, but also nice and sometimes nice to share. So she was like, I really missed him, and he was a great guy. And I was like, oh, Cher.

[T Mom Z]

I saw that slant a little differently. It sounds like he was a really good guy to share.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

And when he drank then, you know, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde kind of thing, then he would be abusive, and obviously it wasn't tenable in the long term. But she never lost that love and appreciation for how much care and tenderness he showed her.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I know. It's just wild, though, because there's one night. This is the guy with the last name Southall who's, like, most like her father. One night, he is stalking their house when her mom started dating someone else and, like, comes in with a knife, and they go running barefoot through the neighborhood, and her mom's broken and bleeding, and they have to, like, call the cops and be like, he's about to kill us. But, yeah, Cher still had, like, a lot of love for him in the end, which.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah. But they all. At a certain point, all of George's husbands were alcoholics and violent at a certain point. Every single. You sort of understand why Cher gave Sunny a pass because she grew up watching her mother give six or seven different people the same pass. And I will say not. I don't think we should group Sonny in the group with all those husbands. I don't think that his, like, level of substance abuse or violence was anything like what she witnessed her mother going through. He was definitely emotionally abusive.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[Dominic Pupa]

But he still got a pass from her because that's what she was taught. That's what she witnessed.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I wrote down that, too. I said, oh. Because these, like, moments of kindness kind of bought the love for him back for her. Like her father, that is. Then how she, like, approached Sunny later. Okay. And then her mom does have one good husband. Gilbert. Gotta talk about Gilbert.

[Dominic Pupa]

Love Gilbert. Love Gilbert.

[Chelsea Devontez]

So wait, do either of you remember? Mom? Do you remember what Gilbert did for a living?

[T Mom Z]

It was a real. Real estate.

[Chelsea Devontez]

He was wealthy in real estate, I think. So Gilbert had money, and he was just, like, a nice guy. So of course her mom was like, I don't love him, but this is nice. They move to New York City for a while. Then her mom's like, I hate you. I hate New York City. I'm unhappy, Gilbert. So then he moves them back into a mansion in Los Angeles, and she's like, gilbert, you suck. And he's like, but I love you so much. And then he eventually runs away with Georgia's friend Beverly.

[T Mom Z]

I think you missed an important point in there.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Tell me.

[T Mom Z]

He said to her, here's the deal. I love you. I'm so happy we're here, blah, blah, blah. But I want to have three ways. I want to have little orgies. I. That's who I am. Please get on board. I don't want to lose you.

[Dominic Pupa]

That's where Georgia drew the line. That's where she drew the line.

[T Mom Z]

Yeah. No, I'm sorry. I can't. That's what split them up.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Oh, my God. For some reason, I thought that was a. Georgia had a lot of husbands, okay? So I thought that was a different person. So actually, like, Gilbert can, like, suck a dick.

[T Mom Z]

Good old Gilbert.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I'm sure Gilbert would love to do. Okay. And then there's one more story from her mom before we get into some Cher stuff, which is going to tie in to our Lucille Ball episode, which is gonna drop on November 22nd. So I wanna read it. I was screaming my head off. Her mom, this, like, beautiful blonde, worked as an actress, and pretty. Unsuccessfully. Like, she was always, like, background or an extra. And she got a part on the Lucille Ball show. And she said, my mom admired and respected Lucy. So it made it even more difficult when she had to dodge advances from Desi Arnaz, Lucy's husband.

[Dominic Pupa]

I love that you pulled that out, because it's just. That's sort of where it ends. Like, they don't. She doesn't. You want a whole book just about that? Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And you're like, oh, God, Desi, you bitch. Because I know Desi cheated on Lucy a lot, but it's in this moment where, like, her character on the show wears a flower pot on her head. So Desi is truly hitting on anybody and everybody around Lucy. And it's like, it was so sad. Mom, did you have other favorite parts of or parts that stood out to you about Cher's childhood? Because it is so chaotic. She said her sister counted, and at one point, they realized they had gone to 25 different schools. That's how many times they had moved. Like, husbands, houses, finances. They were, like, usually pretty poor, but sometimes Georgia, you know, pulled in a Gilbert or a HarperCollins, and then they'd, like, be rich. But what stood out to you about Cher's childhood?

[T Mom Z]

Well, obviously, all the abandonment that she experienced. And also just describing the long history of generational drug and alcohol abuse.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

And, you know, all the ways that affect her. But one thing that really sort of stuck for me was that there's a line in the book I think I highlighted here, but it says I could not control anything about my mother's life except I could keep it clean. I could keep it organized. I could make all of that work. She became the adult in the family. Georgia worked all that she could, and she raised her little sister and took care of the house. That just got me personally.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. That was what your life was like, Mom.

[T Mom Z]

It's like. It's still like it. It's a lifelong curse.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Now I'm just like, I'll clean it up. I know. I'll organize the drawer, and everything will be fine.

[T Mom Z]

But pretty much, it's hard for me to sit down and do anything creative if there's a lot of chaos around me. And yet some of my most productive friends truly live in chaos. Doesn't bother them at all. They can throw papers, they can find what they want, and I can't function like that.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I think you're talking about your daughter. I don't know how you didn't pass on any cleanliness to me, but it happened.

[T Mom Z]

You're actually one of many. I can think of Auntie Sharon. I can think of so many.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. So many. Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

It's not just you, baby.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. So Cher can never talk to her mom about how bad childhood feels for her, because her mom's childhood was way worse. Like, her mom's own father tried to kill her. And so because when she, like, starts to become a teenager and she's had all this chaos, but she can't talk to her mom about it because her mom will be like, I had it worse. It starts to divide them. And one thing I want to talk about is that she finds out. So her mom had her when she was a teenager, and she told her, your name is Sherilyn, and she named her Cherilyn after Lana Turner, her favorite actress's daughter, whose name was Cheryl, and her grandma, Cher's grandma Lynn. So it was Sherilyn Lynn for Linda Cherilyn Sarkeesian. And then later in life, when she goes to change her name and gets her birth certificate, she was always just Cheryl.

[Dominic Pupa]

That. That's what's on the birth certificate. It says Cheryl, Cheryl.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And when she asks her mom, her mom's like, what? I was a teenager and I was in pain. Get over it. Now here's a fun fact for you both that I learned on our Patreon. Lana Turner's daughter Cheryl, went on to murder Lana Turner's abusive boyfriend. You all knew this.

[Dominic Pupa]

Okay, so I'm like, oh, yes, scandalous. Scandalous case.

[Chelsea Devontez]

But also, like, defending her mom. And then also, like, that's who Cher is named after.

[Dominic Pupa]

When she would talk about these discussions that she'd have, like, what you're talking about, where she can't have discussions with her. Her mom, about how bad her childhood is because her mother would just look at her and say, at least your father didn't try to gas you.

[T Mom Z]

Yeah.

[Dominic Pupa]

Like, talk about a way to end a conversation. She must have been like, jesus Christ, you win.

[T Mom Z]

I thought it really just spoke to how Georgia never really grew up.

[Dominic Pupa]

What about the guy that tried to gas them? Just remained in their lives.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. As grandpa.

[Dominic Pupa]

It is a very old school way of looking at a human being.

[T Mom Z]

Blood is thicker than water.

[Dominic Pupa]

Sure. And it's a. It's a survival mechanism as well. When you know that you can't leave somebody or you feel like you can't leave somebody, you just consider the violence. Oh, just a small part of them. It's not who they are in totality. When. What we know now is that when you see that small part of somebody, you leave and don't. Don't come back. Yeah, but back then you sort of had to justify, oh, this isn't as bad as it seems. And to. To grow up in a house where you watch your mother do that with five or six different people, and then your fate is only that you are going to do the same thing, no matter the circumstance, which is what she did with Sunny.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And just how normalized it was for men to be violent. You know, it was like, that boys will be voicing and, like, not expecting better. So I believe it's after HarperCollins. Millionaire goes away one day. She's like, hey, Cher, how'd you like to meet your real father? And she's like, what? She's like, yeah, he's in town. Johnny's here. And Cher meets her dad, Johnny, who is Armenian. She meets her entire Armenian extended family, and she's like, oh, it was, like, really cool to, like, see his face for the first time and know all the ways, like, why am I different from, like, you and my sister? And I can see it in my dad. And then her mom's like, yeah, that's nice. I'm gonna marry him again. And had always been like, I hate him. He's a drug abuser. He stole all our money. He abandoned us in New York. He's short. He's ugly. I don't like anything about him. I'm gonna marry him again. What. What did y'all think of that?

[Dominic Pupa]

So to be clear, the guy that left you in an orphanage and didn't even call to see if everything was all right, he's your new daddy?

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. I mean, and it's so funny. Cause she doesn't really. She writes the story of Johnny coming back, but it's more about, like, her mom and Johnny. It gets so bad. That leaves Johnny, but then she's pregnant, but then she has an abortion, but then gets back together with him. And then Johnny kind of goes away. And Cher never really talks about her dad again. What did you guys think of that?

[Dominic Pupa]

I didn't. Yeah, I really didn't even notice it until you brought it up now. But, yeah, she. She doesn't. I. I think that he didn't. I think for Cher, he was just a missing piece of the puzzle. And I think his absence, sort of. She didn't. I don't think she actually felt much for him. I think he's just a historical figure in her life. And that's pretty much it.

[T Mom Z]

Yeah, that's really what. That's what I got out of it. She kept saying things like, well, it was really good to know why I Look like this, or why I sounded like that, or why my hair was just so. And blah, blah, blah. But then she. She just said, my curiosity is satisfied. So. Next.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, I mean, she had way more love for Gilbert and the south hall guy than her dad in the book. And I think they were like, better father figures to her.

[T Mom Z]

Yeah, well, that's what happens when you abandon your kids. You can't expect them to.

[Chelsea Devontez]

That's kind of what happens when you get abandoned in a Catholic orphanage, doesn't it?

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah. No one's feeling bad for Johnny Sarkeesian in this equation.

[Chelsea Devontez]

No, we are not. So then Cher is about. Is she 13 or 14 when she loses her virginity?

[Dominic Pupa]

I think 14.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I think it was 14. I thought it was 14, too. And. And so let's talk about her virginity.

[Dominic Pupa]

Story, because this so, I mean, so unceremonious and like, just like you lose your virginity to someone and then immediately insult them 30 seconds later. But also that, like, insane.

[Chelsea Devontez]

That was her whole. It's the most iconic Cher story. She has this, like, crush on this kid, but then he's rude to her in front of the cool kids and pretends like they don't know each other. And so then she was like, all right, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get revenge. I'm going to have sex with him, lose my virginity, and never talk to him again. So then she loses her virginity. She was like, that was mediocre. Was that it? And he's like, yeah, see you tomorrow. Right? And she's like, fuck off, and never talks to him again. 14 year old with. I mean, I don't know. I'm just like, it's so. It's so badass to be like, at 14.

[T Mom Z]

Yeah, it.

[Dominic Pupa]

It is. Well, first of all, can you imagine having sex with Cher and then she looks at you and says, is that it? Like, that's all. I just heard it in her voice the entire time. I was like, so cutting. But she treated her first intimate experience. I don't want to say the way that Georgia treated men, but she knew how to end a situation right away because she saw her mot mother do it. I mean, it was all from the first time she was with a man. She knew that she didn't need him, which she's quoted throughout history saying versions of that over and over.

[Chelsea Devontez]

But what's that favorite quote of, like, do you believe a woman needs a man? She says, for what? I think it's Barbara Walters asking her.

[T Mom Z]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay. So basically, she's 14 years old when she lives in Virginia. That's when they go to New York City. She drops out of high school, and then when they get moved back to la, they make her go back into high school, but then she's so miserable that she drops out again. And it's all because she's dyslexic, but no one knows what learning disabilities are, and so they just think she's not applying herself or lazy, but they let her drop out. And the funniest story to me is that she goes to Gilbert and convinces him to rent out an apartment for her to live in and leave home. And her roommate is Gilbert's maid.

[Dominic Pupa]

Right?

[Chelsea Devontez]

And it's, like, hilarious.

[Dominic Pupa]

Hilarious.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Like, okay, yeah, that's how she, like, starts her life. And I mean. Oh, that's just so.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah, you're reading it, though. It's like, this is, for lack of a better word. The stories just kept getting sharier and sharier. Like, it was just like, of course she lived with dad's maid. Of course she just ran into Warren Beatty as someone, you know. Like, of course she just randomly meets because she's Cher. Like, it's not her. Being an icon is not a joke. This book filled in all of those blanks where, like, the impossibility of how amazing she is started at birth. Like, the whole book is just one astonishing story after another.

[Chelsea Devontez]

That's such a good point. Okay, let's. Let's talk about Warren, baby, by the.

[Dominic Pupa]

Way, and I don't mean to cut you off, but when she. I don't think I knew anything about her living in New York City ever as a kid. That somehow had escaped me over the years. And as I live in New York City, I love, love, love living in New York City. And to hear how much she loved it was amazing to read. Cause she did go on for several paragraphs of, like, the freedom of living here and public transportation and the parties and the people, which still mostly applies today. But that was one of my personal favorites. Favorite things to read was how much she loved New York. And I just was like, why don't you. Why don't you live here now so we could, like, drunkenly go by your apartment and scream outside your window every Friday, do it.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, I love that. And how she. Yeah, not needing a car meant she could be free at 14.

[T Mom Z]

Yeah, I can relate to that one.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah, it's true.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. And she. She kind of becomes like an it girl in New York City. Like, she, like, dresses cool and hangs out and doesn't go to school. And I was like, like what?

[T Mom Z]

I can relate to that, too. She had matured quite a bit, and she knew enough to know that she really didn't see a future for herself in academia. She didn't need all this information. And also, I loved that she knew she didn't need to struggle that much. She was put in situations where she was told, you have to do this, you have to do that. As long as she was not with Sunny yet and making these decisions for herself, really, as a child woman, she knew how to save done out of here.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[Dominic Pupa]

And knowing when to leave a situation and knowing that you can leave a situation is an important life lesson, but it's also something that she probably learned by example from her mother. You know, I mean, her mother drifted in and out of situations when she felt like she couldn't take anymore. And obviously she took that lesson from her throughout her life.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. Georgia knows when to leave. Georgia just doesn't know to not go back. And I might say the same for Cher. Okay, let's talk about this Warren Beatty story. So first off, let me just say in the book, my first time, there is a photo section, and I think it's actually a photo that's in this book, too, where they're all at a Christmas tree. And in the caption of the photo, she's like, me at 16, right after my mom encouraged me to go on a date with Warren Beatty, but didn't write the story in the book. I don't know if you remember this, but, I mean, I lost my mind because I was like, I'm sorry, are we finding out from a photo caption that, like, Cher fucked Warren Beatty at 16? Like, I think we are, but she's being so vague. So we get to this story in the book, and I'm like, yes. So she's driving Gilbert's car around, and this, like, crazy car comes through and almost hits her. And she pulls over and she gets out and screams, and she's like, what the fuck is the matter with you? You almost hit me. The man was wearing big, black framed sunglasses, but I could tell he was unbelievably handsome with one of the sexiest smiles I'd ever seen. When he took off his glasses, I realized that it was Warren Beatty. So then she said, got a cigarette? And he said, no, but I can run across to the store and get you some. 10 years older than me at 25. Okay, so she's 15.

[Dominic Pupa]

Okay.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Warren was so drop dead gorgeous, I had to steady myself.

[Dominic Pupa]

Blah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Blah, blah. Then he's like, come by my house. And she's like, of course. He leans in and kisses her. And she said, now this is interesting, I thought as I kissed him back. The two of us went swimming with me and Natalie Wood's bathing suit.

[Dominic Pupa]

These details, like, I can't.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And then this is how cool Cher is. She goes home. Her mom's like, you are grounded. Like, where the hell have you been? What do you mean? You've been out all night. And Cher's like, I was busy. Then Warren calls her house, and he's like, go to dinner with me. And she's like, I can't. My mom's mad at me. And he's like, let me talk to your mom. Puts Warren Beatty on the phone with her mom. Her mom's like, who's this Warren Beatty? Please come over to the. And her mom's like, seriously? Warren Beatty? And her mom's like, you didn't tell me it was Warren. Get this guy over the house. You can date him all you want.

[Dominic Pupa]

Cher's lucky Georgia didn't just marry Warren Beatty.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I think Georgia tried. I bet Georgia tried at dinner and failed. Here's the thing she said. When I went to meet Warren, mom was beside herself. You have to tell me everything, she whispered as I went out the door. He and I saw each other for two more dates, and I enjoyed his company, but that was that. The last time he called, I was with Sonny. He said, do you wanna go to dinner? I said, well, I have a boyfriend. He said, okay, do you wanna go to lunch?

[Dominic Pupa]

It's a great, great.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Such a great line.

[T Mom Z]

I love that line.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And she writes, it was so cute and so him. Okay, that is where the story ends.

[Dominic Pupa]

So he's like, yeah, I'll fuck you while your husband's at work is basically the Warren Beatty. The dossier right there we all know and love.

[Chelsea Devontez]

But, you guys, she never wrote that she fucked Warren Beatty.

[Dominic Pupa]

No.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And I think. I mean, I think if you read.

[T Mom Z]

Between the lines, she. She doesn't want to be that explicit at that point in the book.

[Chelsea Devontez]

No, I. Here's what I think it is, because I'm like, obviously, she fucked Warren Beatty. There's just no chance in hell she didn't fuck Warren Beatty. However, I think she. She doesn't write it in print because it's statutory rape. Sleep. Because she will write about every other sexual encounter in this book, including the virginity. But the virginity guy is nameless. Warren Beatty, like, Right. Otherwise, why. What is she not telling us?

[Dominic Pupa]

That's a great point. See, I. What? I finished that section thinking that they didn't sleep together. Right.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Is there any way, Is there any way they didn't sleep together?

[Dominic Pupa]

I, I, I wouldn't think so. I wouldn't think so.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Lizzie. Having read pages and pages of details of Warren Beatty and how he gets down, especially in Carly Simon's memoir.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I just don't think it's possible that they went out that many times. Oh, boy. I don't know. I don't know. But she didn't say that they did. She just said they went out. So.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah, it felt to me like she was going out of her way to not address it. So what you're saying actually makes perfect sense.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, it's. Oof. Wild.

[Dominic Pupa]

Wow.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Mom, what do you think? Do you think they were together?

[T Mom Z]

Yeah, I absolutely do.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay.

[T Mom Z]

I just think it was a lot more accepted back then that older guys would hit on young girls.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

And I mean, her own grandma got married when she was 12 and had Georgia when she was 13 to a guy like 11 or something years older.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Which will lead in perfectly to this next part of the book where she meets meets Sunny Bono. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break right now and we'll be right back. Thrive Cosmetics is my favorite makeup. They have thousands of five star reviews, they are cruelty free, and they have my brand new favorite product that I have used every single day since I got it. It is their brilliant eye brightener, the shade Stella. I use this in conjunction with their Liquid Lash extensions mascara. And it is gorgeous. I get so many compliments. It truly highlights your eyes and creates the most beautiful eyeshadow that has depth. Brighten your holiday look with Thrive Cosmetics, luxury beauty that gives back. Right now, you can get an exclusive 20% off your first order at thrivecosmetics.com glamorous trash that's thrive Cosmetics. C A U S E M E t I c s.com glamorous trash for 20 off your first order, go get that brilliant eye brightener shade Stella.

[T Mom Z]

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[Dominic Pupa]

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[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay, welcome back. Let's continue the conversation. She's in this diner and there's a bunch of people there. And someone says, like, hey, Sunny. Hey Sunny, come to our table. And she turns and looks and she says, I swear to God, it was just like Maria and Tony and west side Story. Everyone else in the room faded. Salvatore Philip Bono was one of the most interesting men I'd ever seen. She said it wasn't at love at first sight. I just thought he was special. And he immediately hits on her friend who she's with, and then later finds out that her friend is gay and then is like, oh, aw.

[Dominic Pupa]

And later thought that Cher was at one, was the friend's girlfriend.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yes. Yeah, yeah. And so this is the wildest story where like, she thinks he's really cool, but then she's living with her friend. But then her friend's like, you've, you've gotta get outta here. You can't live here anymore. And then Sunny moves into the building next door and then she just befriends them and starts hanging out until the day she's supposed to move out. And finally she's cries to Sunny and she's like, I'm supposed to move out. And he said, well, Cher, if you cook and clean the place, you could always live with me. For a while in my mind I was thinking, yeah, okay, this old line. But I laughed. I must have had that look on my face because he said, don't worry, I've got twin beds. With a grin he added, and honestly, I don't find you particularly attractive.

[T Mom Z]

Groomer, I hear. Grooming, yes, I know. So much grooming.

[Chelsea Devontez]

The audacity of this uggo. And he loves. We'll later find out that he loves younger girls and he always goes for younger girls. So it's like, you liar. Can't you. Oh, I have to kill him, Mom, I'm so glad you said that. Okay, so then he keeps dating lots of women. And she says almost all of his relationships remained casual because he certainly wasn't looking for love. And most of the women were looking for a man who could support them. He was charming and funny, but he had no money, drove an old Chevy Monza, and lived in a one bedroom apartment with a random teenager. He wasn't a catch. Not to mention he was going through a divorce.

[Dominic Pupa]

Right. And already had a child. With a child as well.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And had a child. And then like, we'll see Cher changing and being like, oh, you're so skinny. Don't you have any curves? Like, bleh, you're gross. And she said she began to hero worship him. And they just became like best friends and hung out all the time until one day he, like, kisses her after they, like, see a movie together. And then they're just together after that. So please tell me. Okay, Dom, I'm gonna start with you. Just tell me thoughts and feelings of how Sonny Bono and Cher get together for the first time.

[Dominic Pupa]

This was the part of the book for a superfan that was the most important to me because it filled in blanks. I mean, and there's been like the Cher show musical and the book from 99, and there was even like an ABC, I think, television movie about Sonny and Cher's romance maybe like 20, 25 years ago. And this part of her life has always been so sort of nebulous. I don't know, because she was trying to protect him, or maybe she didn't remember some of the details, I don't know. But it was. I had a real disconnect with her talking about comparing them to Tony and Maria when they met, I feel like. And Cher, I love you. If you're listening, I don't think it was like that. I think she threw that in for the fans because the fans sort of wanted it to be that way. Because she said when she met him it was like Tony and Maria, but then there was really no interest. She was almost with him out of necessity after that, and then fell in love with him. So the order of all these events has been. It really has, like, filled in a lot of pieces of the puzzle. But I think that he was steady for her, even with all of his faults. And when you read every. Every page up until these events in the book is chaotic. I mean, she had the most chaotic childhood that I. I think I've read about in years, actually more than she'd ever said before in. In the other works. And I think he was just very steady that. That she could rely on him with all of his faults. And I. She just needed it. And she really did. She. She needed him or Someone in that way.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[Dominic Pupa]

At that time, like, it could have.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Been a parent, but since there was no parent to. To do that, it's him. Mom, what did you think?

[T Mom Z]

Oh, that's really tough. You know, when you're that young and you are in need of some stability as someone that will protect you after everything that she's been through. You know, they were good friends, which is great. You're friends first. But they laughed all the time. They laughed. They made each other laugh. They both had nothing. They were trying to build something together. They had each other's back. And that alone is such a powerful bond and will overcome a lot of other deficiencies in someone. But then, as we know in her story and hear in detail in her book, as time goes on, this person becomes absolutely possessive and controls every little aspect of your life.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

And, you know, I think that that was their story, that she didn't see what was coming. She didn't understand that, oh, he loves me, he cares about me. He's a little bit jealous for me instead of, you know, had she been older, she might have seen maybe some of the red flags. Like, can I see the contract? You know, like, wait, what am I signing?

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. No, it really reminded me of a type of love can only happen when you are 16 and you don't. He's 14. Yeah. Mom. I was thinking of you a lot, mom. Of like, you know, where it's like, as a teenager, you're like, oh, this can be love. And like, someone from the outside probably saw Sonny Bono coming a mile away and what he was about to do, to share. But for her, it was just like laughing and being roommates and like. Yeah, it's interesting about the Tony and Maria thing, you're saying, because there is a crazy deep bond here. Or some could say it's what happens when you're a child and a man marries you. Or some could say it's cosmic love. But there's this one scene where she is singing. I thought it was really funny, she said. Sticking his head through the door of the bedroom, he asked, was that you singing? He stared at me as if he'd never seen me before. Yeah, I replied, turning back to make the bed. You can sing, Sunny said. Yes, but I mean, you can really sing. Bundling up Dirty laundry, I played. Yes, I know. Have you always been able to sing like that? He asked, eyes wide. No, Sunny, I just started today. Huh? He said, before wandering off into the kitchen. And I think that's a little bit of his Tony and Maria's moment.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Because he sees a star sign.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

He sees a career.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Exactly. Exactly. So at this time, Sunny is hanging around murderer and horrible wig wearer Phil Spector. And if you're like, what? Phil Spector wears wigs, Go back and listen to our Ronnie Spector episode. Because those famous Phil Spector photos that you think of, where he is on the stand in this giant, white, curly, almost afro appropriated hair. That is a wig. It's a wig for a child's head. That is supposed to be a white afro that Phil Spector would make Rani buy him. So anyways, go listen to that episode. And you know, he's a monster. But Sunny is there all the time and he starts bringing Cher around. This is going to be like her entrance into the business. For as much as I hate Phil Spector, there was one very funny story to me. I'm curious if you guys think the same where Sunny kind of becomes his lackey, his underpaid lackey, where he just like, does anything for him. And one day he gets a call and they're like, like, Phil Spector's like, so drugged up he cannot get on an airplane.

[Dominic Pupa]

This story.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And he's like, cher, go handle it. And Cher's like, I don't want to talk.

[T Mom Z]

I don't.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I don't know what to do. And he's like, go. So Cher goes to the airport where she finds he has taken so many drugs to get through the panic of flying that when he got on the airplane, he started screaming, wait. Ugh. You guys look like losers. Oh, no, you all look like losers. You losers are going to die. I can't die around losers on a plane and has to, like, get dropped off.

[Dominic Pupa]

First of all, if you did that today, you'd be in jail. Like, you would just. You wouldn't be asked to leave the plane. You would be put behind bars for doing that. You're all going to die when this plane crashes.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Specifically because you look like losers.

[Dominic Pupa]

It's like the Phil Spectoriest thing he's ever said.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[T Mom Z]

But then Cher talks him back onto the plane.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, you put on another flight.

[Dominic Pupa]

She's a child still at this point as well, let's remember, or near childhood. And she goes to the airport to help this drunk maniac get back on a plane to go to New York. And she did it.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And she did it. It's unreal. Here's something that I'll say that actually kind of made me sad about this section in the 1999 My first time book. She talks about how Phil Spector would make her babysit Ronnie Spector because he was a controlling, abusive nightmare and would only let Rani out of the house. And Cher just kind of, like, had to be her gu. And she skipped all of that here. She kind of left a lot of the other Ronnie Spector details out that were in the previous book that I did enjoy. But any other Phil Spector takeaways? This is obviously a big part of her life. She sings backup for free, never gets any credit, but it is her first exposure to music and working with Sunny.

[Dominic Pupa]

It'S thrilling and chilling to read her accounts of these sessions, of them, of the recording of youf've Lost that Love and Feeling. Like I could read a whole book just about these sections of her life. Just being in that little recording studio and all the names that are dropped like that she. People that she was just casually friends with. It's like one icon after another. It's insane. But if you notice, she does also speak somewhat affectionately about Phil Spector, whom she only refers to as Philip in the book, which I'm assuming, but I think she does, of course, allude to the fact that he grew up to be someone much more beastly than who she encountered. But, you know, she. Her tone when writing about Philip is. It feels like it's written by a child. Like, it feels like teenage adoring Cher is writing about Phil Spector. And I know that's weird. I kind of enjoyed that take, though, because you almost understood why anyone would have been enamored with Phil Spector without a crystal ball, obviously.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Although her first meeting with him is her walking up and he, like, thinks so little of her that he goes, vous les vous coucher avec moi.

[Dominic Pupa]

I can't.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Which means, will you sleep with me? In French. And she replies in perfect French, no, thank you. She didn't translate it in the book, but she's translated it before. What did she say in French back to him?

[Dominic Pupa]

It was something like, no, thank you.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, it was something I'd rather not. It was something more cutting, though, that. It was just like, ugh. So it's like she didn't like his shit. She knew he was a weirdo, but also had a lot of affection for. Later she talks about him having a gun and being a fucking weirdo and getting the chills. But, yes, for anyone who doesn't know, he does go on to murder actress Lana Clark. Mama. Any Phil Spector highlights?

[T Mom Z]

I didn't feel like she had affection for him, but I think she had awe and respect for what he was doing in the studio. And Sonny sort of reinforced that when she would make little complaints. There was that moment in the book where she said, I haven't been paid. He said, you should be paying him.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

For what you're getting out of this experience. A masterclass. And the education.

[Dominic Pupa]

I mean, like, the really. The most legendary unpaid internship in show business history, I would say, is the first year before Georgia insisted that she get paid 20. Was it Georgia?

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[Dominic Pupa]

She get paid $25?

[Chelsea Devontez]

No. Georgia was like, just please get paid.

[Dominic Pupa]

That was one time. She got one check. One time.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, I did. Like, when Georgia had her head on straight, she would come in for moments and do the right. Other. Other times she would be like Warren Beatty. And then sometimes she was like, please get a paycheck. Okay, so we have to talk about this poem that Sunny wrote for her in their relationship, and it's going to come up a lot. And in the poem, she said, I only remember the last line where he wrote that Cher was quote, a butterfly to be loved by all. I didn't know how prophetic it was at the time, but I knew that Sunny saw something in. What I didn't realize is how much that scared him.

[Dominic Pupa]

Right.

[Chelsea Devontez]

So the butterfly thing is gonna come up a lot, where basically, Sunny wrote this poem early to be like, everyone's supposed to love the butterfly, and the butterfly is gonna, like, leave me for everyone, even though I wanna hold and crush the butterfly myself. So I don't know if y'all noticed, but on her the book cover jacket is a butterfly, and in between the chapters are these tiny little butterflies. Butterflies. Which I don't know if y'all know, but the butterfly is also Mariah Carey's. Mariah Carey is Butterfly, butterfly, butterfly. And Dolly's current business logo. Like, anytime you get, like, a Dolly lipstick and a Dolly cake mix, which I do on the regular, it's Dolly with a little butterfly. All three of these women, butterflies. Can someone make it make sense?

[Dominic Pupa]

No.

[T Mom Z]

It's coming out of the cocoon.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Take it, Mom. You got it. Tell us. Tell us.

[T Mom Z]

It's just coming out of the cocoon into this beautiful creature. So you could be really in the womb, and you're not really showing up for yourself or becoming who you think you should be.

[Dominic Pupa]

You know, it really. It is a generational. It's a generational. There's still. Regardless of what he did to her or put her through or made her feel, she's always. It's like. It's beyond Love. It's more like a reverence for what he did for her that set her on the path for her life, despite the shit she had to crawl through to do it. And to be honest with you, it reminds me a little bit if you've ever, in later years, heard Tina Turner speak about Ike, which is, of course, a much, much more physically violent relationship than what Sonny and Cher had. You almost want Tina Turner to say, fuck that asshole. Anytime Ike's name, name came up, but she didn't. You know, she just said he was. He was troubled. He put me through hell, and I got through it. And it's sort of that tone with Cher as well. There's, like, levels of forgiveness in the generations before us with this sort of thing that doesn't exist.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, well. And I. It. It's. I don't even want to call it forgiveness. It's like levels of brainwashing.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah. Oh, for sure.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And actually, I. I don't know. If they had the option to forgive them, would society have allowed them? Did we have the articulation and education for them to know what actually happened to them and what is okay and not okay and what you don't have to get over and what is not your shame? And I just. I just don't know. And, yes, her and Tina Turner have a lot of similarities. And actually, their friendship is gonna come up in this book quite a bit. For me, it actually, yeah, it's not a romantic love. It's a love of. Of a father or a parent for both of them. It's like, well, he raised me not like he's the love of my life, but he raised me. And so I forgave him for these things, even though it's like, I think.

[T Mom Z]

You feel you owe someone when they show up and do that for you. And even at Tina's book, she talked about how she blamed herself, like, all the abuse. She would say, I accepted this. I allowed this to happen. I let my kids be exposed to this. And she also may have not went after him harder because they did have children. And so that's a real concern. Like, how much do you want to burn someone down in your kid's eyes so that they have nothing?

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

I have very mixed feelings about that decision anyway, because sometimes you need to teach the kid, danger, danger. You know, we're going to have to run the other way, so. Sorry.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

But instead you protect that from them. Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. Okay. Well, to talk about the violence, they had a dog for a little bit of time, and she said, Sunny was cooking one night as I stood alongside him as his sous chef when the puppy got under his feet and yelped as Sunny shoved it to one side with his foot. Hey, son. Don't do that, I said. Before I knew it, Sonny had spun around and pushed me up against a wall. He didn't yell and he didn't hit me, but he had a hold of my shoulders and his face. I was so vehemently opposed to being manhandled, having seen mom go through it, that I thought, fuck this. I'd witnessed fear and I'd seen violence. I'd been beaten as a kid, and I wasn't going to be beaten as an adult. Staring into his eyes, I said, let me tell you something. If you ever touch me like this again, I will leave your ass, and it'll be the last time you ever see me. I wasn't kidding, and he could see that I meant it. So I think it's kind of a miracle there's not further violence from him. Him at slash. I don't know. Because it's like, you'll hurt a dog and you'll hurt your girlfriend. Like, I don't know. Yeah.

[Dominic Pupa]

That shook me, because I'd never. I don't recall her ever telling that story.

[Chelsea Devontez]

No before.

[Dominic Pupa]

And I thought that that was opening the door to Sunny doing that repeatedly to her. I was really relieved just. Just to maintain my childhood. I was really relieved that he did not do that. I will forgive so for the stuff he did do, but if he put his hands on her, that would be crazy. But that her reaction to that was Cher. To me, that was almost like the Cher that we know, the ball buster. That it was sort of her being born in that moment, like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, I'll do a lot of things that my mother did, but there's no way I'm doing that. So.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. Right.

[Dominic Pupa]

Goodbye.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. Listen, I do not forgive you, Sonny Bono. I have no forgiveness for you.

[Dominic Pupa]

You shouldn't.

[T Mom Z]

You shouldn't.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I'm going to go sh. In Palm Springs.

[T Mom Z]

I got the feeling Sunny was a pretty. Had a lot of secrets that she didn't. She alluded to and talked a little bit about, but this guy had another side to himself, and I think he realized Cher was his meal ticket early on, and I think that probably held him back from maybe some of his worst behaviors. But, you know, as it turns out, he was addicted to Valium and who knows what else was going on, but he was definitely playing around a lot. I would imagine he'd rough some people. People up.

[Chelsea Devontez]

That. That's what I think. Maybe not Cher, but. But like, listen.

[Dominic Pupa]

And she tried to excuse it a little. I mean, she's very. She's still very protective of him.

[Chelsea Devontez]

She's. I mean, the fact that she was this honest, I'm so. It's so weird to say you're proud of Cher, but it's like she's been protecting this man for decades for trying.

[Dominic Pupa]

In the book, you know, and she says like, oh, you know, well, he's Sicilian. And I'm like, oh, my own. Don't go there, please. Like, that's not.

[T Mom Z]

But he had a rough childhood. You don't know the pain he's been through.

[Chelsea Devontez]

It's like, Cher, you had a rough childhood.

[T Mom Z]

Did you see any or listen to any of Cher's talk at his funeral?

[Dominic Pupa]

Oh, yes, I've seen it a million times. Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

I mean, she defended him right to the very end. Love of her life. She remembered all the good times. And, you know, time goes by and I guess sometimes you can step back and say, well, we both pretty much big idiots in this situation and let a lot of stuff go. Well, not that I think she was. I think she was born a smart cookie.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And Cher doesn't hold a grudge, but I do. Okay, so they get married. Like fake married. What? How old do we think she is? I was like, are you even of legal age to be married, Cher? Like, I couldn't tell. Maybe 17, 18. They marry each other at home by looking in the mirror. And she's the efficient and they wear rings on each other's fingers. Hers says Sunny and his says Cher. And they start to make it by Sunny writing the music. He writes I got you, babe. Which he took from her mom, Georgia always saying, babe, which I loved. I love Cher is like an 11 year old. Be like, what's that, mom? And she'd be like, that's a blizzard, babe. And it's like, oh, oh, so 70s cool. So he writes, I got you, babe. Taking that from George. And Cher, always being too frightened to sing alone, pulls Sunny on stage with her and needs Sunny. And he goes with her to get Cher to sing because she's so shy. Even though like Sunny, it's like this stunning woman who truly can sing and is very talented and this guy. And like the haircut you get when you put a mixing bowl over your head and cut the trim the scissors around who can't really sing.

[Dominic Pupa]

He was Dorothy Hamill before Dorothy Hamill was Dorothy Hamill with that Hair.

[Chelsea Devontez]

It was he. The way where like a man now wearing too weird of a fedora. I'm like, oh, he has internal issues. That's what Sonny was doing with his haircut. You know what I mean? It's just like you're fighting a demon and it's coming through in your hair choices. And so they act this song. Like, after a few different tries, a bunch of things happen. But this song gets up and it gets huge, and they land in Europe and they're superstars, and it kind of becomes so fast, relentless. Like, just immediately they're popular. They dress really weird. I missed things from her first memoir where she was talking about how neither of them conformed to gender standards. And, like, that was kind of like how they took off at the time.

[Dominic Pupa]

And the way they were dressed.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And he was, like, always in accessories and, like, fur boots. And she has a Pretty Woman moment where she walks in a store and she's like, can I have this?

[Dominic Pupa]

She didn't even mention that the exact, exact same story happened in Pretty Woman.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Not at all.

[Dominic Pupa]

Which made me raise an eyebrow. I'm like, this was this story the inspiration for Julia Roberts saying, big mistake, huge in Pretty Woman? It felt like it had to be.

[T Mom Z]

It wouldn't surprise me.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Cher had an even better tagline, though. She's like, how much is this? She's like, you can't afford it. And then she goes, I'll take one in every color.

[T Mom Z]

Yeah.

[Dominic Pupa]

And then went home and cried to Sunny. She's like, I spent too much money. What have I done? And he didn't get a shit.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Which is. We loved that moment. We loved that moment.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

But Sunny is. Is becoming more and more controlling as they get successful, and she is becoming more and more unhappy. Dringo. We've got an exact weight mention a million times in the book. This one, she said I was 102 pounds. I felt like a butterfly pinned to a board. Yeah. She's getting more and more unhappy. And I said, you know, the real love story in this book, the real Toni and Maria, is on page 215 where she's on the Carol Burnett show, and she walks up and she said, I saw the door behind me open, and in walked the most incredibly handsome man. He was in his late 20s with tousled blonde hair and the most amazing blue eyes and looked like he'd just spent the summer in Greece. I took one look at him and said, you're so much younger than I thought you'd be. Quick as a flash, he replied. And you're so much smaller than I thought you'd be. Because I was taller than Sunny, everyone always thought I'd be a giant. That was the first time I met Bob Mackie.

[Dominic Pupa]

That. That really was the Tony. Maria, that is so amazing that you just said that. The first meeting with Bob Mackie is so much more descriptive than the first meeting.

[T Mom Z]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And, like, Bob Mackie is. If we think Sunny changed her life, her and Bob Mackie, like, that is a twofer that, like, truly changed. Sonny still changed fashion and life as we know it. God, I could talk about Bob Mackie forever. Okay, so he let her.

[Dominic Pupa]

He. Can you believe Cher didn't wear dresses until she met Bob Mackie? Like, part of the look. Sonny wouldn't even let her wear a dress. They all. She always wore pants.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Oh, God, I love this. And also, I think the thing about Bob Mackie that I really love is, like, not only are his dresses the most beautiful, sparkliest, most perfect things ever, but he created Camille set pieces. Like, he created Carol Burnett wearing the curtains. Like, that wasn't written in the script.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yep.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And it's like his joke. And then Cher would write, like, oh, when we needed a joke, like, Bob would create these sweatshirts that looked like turnips or something, and everyone would laugh, and it's like, so he was, like, stunning and hilarious.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah, I could. I don't think. I don't know that there would be the RuPaul's Drag Race empire had Bob Mackie not existed. Because, I mean, jumping around. But, like, when Cher had her own television show, the Cher show, the signature moment was at the beginning of every show. She'd start off with a ballad, whip off whatever cloak she was wearing, and then she'd have on something skimpy underneath. It was a standard drag queen reveal that was part of this show every week. And it's, you know. Did Bob Mackie invent the reveal? I don't know, but he popularized it, and it's a pretty standard move in drag everywhere. So it was.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And especially in early drag, where you're like, I've just got a cloak, and I'll just remove the cloak. Yeah, that's like, yeah, that's your day one move. And I'm sure the reveal came from black drag queens doing, you know, the balls. That's the origin, I'm sure. But yes, we are actually going to link a video where they're think. Thank you, TikTok. They have put together a compilation of every single one of those reveals you're talking about. And you can watch 50 Bob Mackie reveals also in her contracts. Later, skipping ahead, she's like, I have to have one thing. I have to have Bob Mackie. And they say, we have no money. You can't afford him. And she's like, bob, can you please help me? And her. Her looks are. It's. Oh, I want to scream. You both. Okay, I want to scream to both the people I love most on this podcast. But, like, the glamour mixed with the comedy that made that show so iconic in a way that they then, like, don't let women do for years. And at one point, Cher writes the sentence in her book, he didn't want to deal with me being a glam glamorous, which, you know, I loved so.

[Dominic Pupa]

Much about what she did in that period of her life. When you're. You're reading about it or you think about it, you just think, why isn't this talked about? More like, yes, I don't want to jump ahead and I'll be quiet after this. But like, just the concept of a divorced couple being on television together after.

[Chelsea Devontez]

They had been in the tabloids for, like, all the horrible things he had done. Okay, but back. Okay, back into the story, then we're just.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah, important. Pineapple.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Important.

[Dominic Pupa]

She's a pioneer.

[Chelsea Devontez]

She's a pioneer in so many ways. She has had three miscarriages with Sunny, and she wants to be pregnant. And she's like, I thought it would be easier. It just wasn't happening. And right after she writes a story about a gynecologist telling her she has an angry uterus.

[Dominic Pupa]

It's fantastic.

[Chelsea Devontez]

She wrote this. She said whenever he was at a low point, Sunny would turn to his writing to help him finish this movie. Chastity, he was writing which note the name Chastity and their child, Chaz. He hired a secretary to take dictation. One night, I woke up thirsty, barefoot and sleepy. I wandered through our open plan house down a strip of marble path to get a glass of water. And I think we all know what's coming. She watches him cheating with the secretary, she said. I continued walking to the bedroom and lay down on the very edge of the bed. I heard him come in behind me and say, share. I. But I held up my hand. Don't say a word. Word. I must have shut my brain off because somehow I was able to fall asleep in the middle of the night. I packed my bag. I left. She goes to her mom, who says, cher, honey, I have to tell you, I've been hearing stories about him for Some time now. And then Sunny says, cher, I'm so sorry. It'll never happen again. By the way, it was your fault for not having sex with me enough.

[Dominic Pupa]

Of course.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And she said, I forget how and what happened, but I got back together with him and we moved into a new house. Unreal. This is early in their marriage. This is before they have Chaz.

[Dominic Pupa]

Like, yeah, she's like, 19 here, and.

[Chelsea Devontez]

He'S cheating down the hall. You bitch. You bitch. Go outside. Go to the yard, you piece of shit. How dare you? And then blames it on her. And then he moves her into a new house. And she's like, oh, thank God we're in this new house. And he's like, okay, here's where I have to tell you. Oh, we're out of money. We owe the irs, and we are completely broke.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah. Like a quarter of a million dollars in the whole.

[Chelsea Devontez]

In debt.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. Mom, what did you think of this whole section?

[T Mom Z]

Train wreck. But I. To me, you could see it coming just in her at least. You know, maybe that's a sad commentary on the life I've led, but you just could see all the signs that he was overspending, overextending, afraid that they weren't gonna make it back to the top of. And I fully expected it when I read it. And then she stood by him.

[Chelsea Devontez]

She stood by. She just got. He just cheated, and she just got back together with him. And then she's like, hey, Sunny, can I have a hobby? And he says, no. And then she convinces him to let her play tennis. And she starts taking tennis lessons. And one day she looks outside to see him burning her tennis clothes so that she cannot have a tennis hobby anymore. This is maniacal, y'all.

[Dominic Pupa]

Also, do you really need a certain outfit to play tennis? I. I mean, of course it's a psychotic thing to do, but, like, you could also do it in sweatpants. Share. It's not like, oh, I. I have no white skirts left. I can't play this particular sport.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Really? I feel like if your husband has started a yard fire to burn your tennis outfits, it's probably a warning sign saying, like, don't go to tennis.

[Dominic Pupa]

Nah, she could have done it secretly.

[Chelsea Devontez]

So then comes this weird stuff. I loved all of the, like, Sonny Bono, early Republican signs because he does later become the Republican mayor of Palm Springs, Right? Which is also. It's like, how did Palm Springs get a Republican mayor? But he starts doing these, like, anti drug PSAs, being like, drugs are bad, you hippies. And if you look at photos of them. It's so crazy. Crazy that, like, this man made all those choices without smoking pot.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Oh. It's like, whoa, bro. And, you know, in those years, it was like, free love and drugs. And he was taking this very. Like, the government will get you. Like, be a good kid. Meanwhile, Cher discovers he was addicted to pills and Valium and he was struggling with addiction himself just to a different type of drug. And is, like, doing all these PSAs. And those PSAs USA's cost them a lot of their career.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Or they're like, you guys aren't cool anymore. We don't like you. Because, like, he needed to yell at people to, like, not smoke weed.

[Dominic Pupa]

She's talked about that extensively in the past, too. I can't remember if it was in the last book.

[Chelsea Devontez]

It was.

[Dominic Pupa]

She talks about the fact that they were basically sober, you know, like, they were just barely even social drinkers. That it sort of limited their circle of friends because everybody in Hollywood was the opposite. Everyone in show business was the opposite. I don't know why Sunny was that way, but she's explicitly it in this book about. Yeah, I've seen what drugs and drinking does to people because all six of my stepfathers were violent addicts. And that's a no for me.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[Dominic Pupa]

I don't know. Why did they ever. I can't remember. Was it ever in the. About Sonny's family? Like, did he inherit this from someone?

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, I don't remember that.

[T Mom Z]

I don't think we heard about his family much at all.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

Details about his family. But she does say in the first chapter that addiction doesn't just run in my family at gallops.

[Dominic Pupa]

I loved that line. I marked that line down, too. Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

And how happy she was that Ed had skipped. She and her little sister.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[Dominic Pupa]

You know, Taylor Sheridan needs to get a hold of this book because this is like. This is sort of like Yellowstone, this book. But there are two prequels in here. Like, you almost want to get Georgia's life in its own series. Like her point of view. And Georgia's parents, too, could be their own. Like, they could just keep going back generations. Really fascinating.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I swear to God, if Taylor Sheridan of Yellowstone gets to touch this instead of me, I will personally kill you, Dominic, because I won't be able to get to him.

[Dominic Pupa]

I've gotten in the habit of saying him instead of. I would normally say Ryan Murphy, but I feel like Ryan's done enough. He needs to take a little break for a minute.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Mr. Taylor.

[Dominic Pupa]

And so Taylor Sheridan, I feel like this is his moment. My Shonda rhymes.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Let's.

[Dominic Pupa]

We'll.

[Chelsea Devontez]

We'll pick someone.

[Dominic Pupa]

There we go. Okay, we'll let you give it to Shonda.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Right? We're giving it to Chelsea Devontez. But Shonda can come seconds. But yes, sure, sure, sure. So he has weird, like, anti abortion views. Like, doesn't want her opinions on things. But he says, hey, I know we're in debt. Give me two years and we'll be back on top. They're so far in debt that they are borrowing money from their chauffeur, which is kind of a sentence that shouldn't exist. They had a chauffeur. Were continued to use the chauffeur had such little money, they borrowed money from their chauffeur.

[Dominic Pupa]

So I had to reread that because it almost didn't make sense.

[Chelsea Devontez]

It. And it. No, almost. It absolutely does not. So they make their way back to the top in two years. And there's several times where she says, you got to give Sunny an A for effort. And a lot of times I said, nope, F but here I'll give him an A. He said, give me two years. And he did it. And they basically take this variety show on the road to tour and they do it live to get money. And then someone sees them and they end up getting their variety show that is going to, you know, break television and, like, be so incredible. And this is where the years come, where they are so successful that Sunny then starts trying to be like a business mogul. And he cares about her less and less and he just wants to do business dealings. And she says she becomes suicidal where she doesn't know if she should live or die. And the only thing that keeps her alive is that they've had their child Chaz at this point. And so she'll stay alive for Chaz. But she's realizing that she's not allowed to watch tv, she's not allowed to have girlfriends, she's not allowed to wear certain clothes. Clothes. Sunny also doesn't want to talk to her. She's like a caged prized possession. And that brought us to my favorite part of the book where she escapes Sunny, which is. Did you both like this part?

[Dominic Pupa]

It's jarring to read this from her too. Like, just because a lot of this is stuff that she's saying for the first time and it's.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I'm sorry, what'd you just say, Dom?

[Dominic Pupa]

My first. What I said it was jarring to read it because she's saying A lot of this stuff for the first.

[Chelsea Devontez]

For the first time. Yeah, that's right. Her favorite first memoir, Hideous book.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah. My first time escaping an Abusive husband. Yeah. That was not in the first. In the coffee table book.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. Somehow this little ditty couldn't fit in that structure. So one night after the show, she goes running out and to her best friend and assistant, Paulette, she's like, I wanna do what you do after the show. And she's like, you're not allowed to. You can't come hang out with us. And she's like, no, no, I got permission. And she's hanging out in this room full of people who are in the band of their show. And Sunny is furious and freaking out. And she has developed a crush on this guy Bill, who is 21, she is 26, and she escapes to go get cigarettes with him. And she's like, we were free, but we could be seen because I could be getting cigarettes with him. Which really reminds me of Mariah Carey escaping with debrat to get French fries from Tommy Mattel. And so this guy is like, how can you live this way? We all feel bad for you. What. What are you doing with your life? And she's like, I don't know. I'm so, so sad. Sunny is freaking out that she has spent one night outside of their house and, like, dares to have friends. And he demands. She comes back to the room and she brings Bill with her. And he says, can you go into the bedroom, Bill, so we can talk? Still staring me down, Sunny looked different somehow pinched. She what are you doing? He asked, but I didn't answer. Then he asked, genuinely curious, what do you want to do? I couldn't believe what came out of my mouth next. I remembered that Sonny had ruined the entire script of our movie Chastity just because I was talking to my co star and I said, I want to sleep with Bill. The silence was deafening. Then he said, how long do you think you'll need? And looking back, I have no idea what made me say what I said next two hours. The whole conversation was not okay. Sonny said. And without another word, he got up and left the room. And then she just sits and talks to Bill. They don't actually have sex. And she says in the middle of the night, Sunny comes back, picks up her hand, pulls her wedding ring off her finger, sends Chaz with the nanny back to LA so that Cher is alone. And then she, like, starts her escape from, like, Caesar's palace to, like, run away from, like, every and go Kind of be with Bill, but mostly just get away from Sunny. This was wild. Did we know any of this ever before?

[Dominic Pupa]

No, I did not know any of this.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Mom, what were your big takeaways from this section of the book where she's, like, leaving Sunny and, like, sleeping with Bill and she, like, has sex with Bill, and she was like, oh, my God. The first time I had sex with Bill, I realized I'm never having sex with Sunny again.

[T Mom Z]

Well, that fits with my theory on why these older men want young, virginal girls is so they don't know what's possible, what good sex is.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, yeah.

[T Mom Z]

That's the whole sort of. It's like, no, I gotta be your only one. It's gotta be me. So this is it.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. Like, they know if you ever encounter literally any other human being with a different personality and sexual prowess, they will choose anyone else.

[T Mom Z]

So I thought about that. But, you know, mostly I just thought, God, finally. Yeah, finally, you know, what broke the spell? What was finally too much. And probably thinking she would throw herself off the bow played a big role in that. Like, really getting to rock bottom with the whole situation. Plus, she was totally exhausted and had absolutely no life. And probably having Bill around going, yeah, actually, we talk about you all the time and how the hell can you put up with this? And why are you a prisoner in your own life? And so on and so forth. Yeah, so I was just cheering her on through that section. I mean, she's really never looked back once. She really made that section. She was so strong, you know, because she was under contract. She couldn't do any work, she couldn't earn any money. And so she figured out that there was one thing she could do that he couldn't control. She could model. And so when they first really split up, she started showing up in all kinds of magazines and different, you know, fashion things, which is how she made a little money until they got things sorted.

[Dominic Pupa]

There's also a great story in the book, Prior to Years before this, where she meets Diana Vreeland at a party. And Diana Vreeland sets her up with Richard Avedon to take photos. Vogue. And so she's wearing a dress that is so backless, it appears that she's not wearing a shirt and preps everyone on set when Sunny shows up. He's gonna lose his mind. And then she just. She said she watched Diana Vreeland go over to Sunny when he walked in the room and just hanging. I don't know much about Diana Vreeland, but I'm now obsessed with her because of that and that Sonny never lost his temper about it because Diana Vreeland handled him. Ugh.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I love that story. Thank you for bringing that one up.

[T Mom Z]

I was happy to get to that part of the book and just see finally she was going to be able to step into this whole new life, which she. She did, and she's continued to and stick up for herself.

[Dominic Pupa]

It made me very sad. I have to be honest. When I was reading, I knew that he. He was. I don't even want to use a word that sort of lessens the stuff that he did to her, but, like, I knew that he was tough. I knew their relationship was tough and that she was feeling imprisoned. There was. There was. She later has an, you know, an album called Prisoner as well. And I can't remember whether or not that has anything to do with her past with Sonny, but it was sad to read because, like, I grew up, as, you know, being huge fans of both of them and then subsequently, her. It's interesting that she has. She has tarnished his reputation with this book on the record. Tarnished his reputation while still having, like, affection for him. Obviously, you know, I mean, the eulogy is, you know, as an example, but, like, she loves him still. You know, she. And she knows that Cher wouldn't be the share we know without him. And I think that's part of the reason why she's willing to not forgive him, but just. He still has a place in her heart. But she has really set the record straight. Like, it was very textbook emotional abuse. Like, as abusive as you could get.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Without laying your hands on somebody, and financial abuse.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I have to say, I. I know. I know it's so complicated, but, like, looking at this, I'm like, I think she would have been Cher without him, and I think he can continue to suck it. She had the taste in clothes. She. She had the voice. She had the comedy. And I know he had a lot to do with it, but, like, it makes me sad she had to protect him this long and protect his reputation this long. Because it reminds me of, like, Ronnie Spector, who did it for Phil, Mariah Carey, who did it for Tommy Mottola, Tina Turner, who had to do it for Ike. Like, all these women who were these talented, beautiful beings just being squeezed to death by these dummies. And that's said she and Sunny do have a very special relationship because after they divorce, Connie, their shared live in assistant, right, suddenly becomes his live in girlfriend. And she's like, I really liked her. And we were all friends, and they lived in one wing of the house, and I lived in another wing. And Sunny. This is how nuts Sunny is at this point. Sunny said he'd heard too much music in his lifetime and wouldn't even listen to classical music. So Connie would run to my room, lock the door, light a cigarette, and listen to whatever I was playing. Chaz would come in too, sometimes, and we'd swear her to secrecy. What happened in the girls room stayed in the girls room. This is the current girlfriend and the ex wife of a man who won't allow music to be played in his home.

[Dominic Pupa]

But can you imagine? I've heard enough music in my life. P.S. i'm also a pop star. Like, it doesn't even. Like what?

[Chelsea Devontez]

So it's like, you are out of your mind, bro. There's just a lot we don't know about him. And basically, as she's getting a divorce from him, but, like, kind of hiding it from the press because they're still doing their show together, she meets David Geffen. And if you are a longtime listener of this podcast, you have heard me talk about David geffen and cher 9 to 17 times. Where. Dom, do you remember this in the book? My first. First time, she's sort of like my friend David and I.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yes.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And Sunny, like, was mad. I was friends with David, and I read the book, and I was like, they have to be together. They seem like they're together. Why is she. But it sounds like they're just friends. And then later in this book is like, we were engaged. We were lovers. We, like, held hands at press events. Like, I loved him, he loved me then.

[Dominic Pupa]

Like, they were a couple. They were a couple. And that's why that. That book. God, I. It is garbage. That first. That first book, that first time should be the last time I'm reading it. Yeah, no, they were. They were a couple, as far as I know. I mean, I was a young, young child at the time, but they were known as a couple. I mean, people knew that they were a thing.

[Chelsea Devontez]

So then why. Why in her 1999 book, did she kind of write it like they were just friends? Like, mom, do you have memories of this? This is. This is how mom got her nickname. T. Mom Z. Because you are giving me the us weeklies of the past. Tell me what was going on.

[T Mom Z]

As scattershot as that may be, I just would like to know why we didn't hear anything about what happened to the engagement. There was no closure on that relationship. And I think maybe when she wrote the 99, 1999 book. She was just trying to keep that all out of it. Like, we didn't go down that road that far and then have a big fight or breakup. It's just not talked about and wasn't in the press either.

[Dominic Pupa]

No. Maybe David needed two hours to sleep with Bill as well, and that was how that relationship ended.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay. Because I have had so many people write in the podcast and say, chelsea Cher was not with David Geffen. David was gay and had no sexual or romantic interest in women. And I was like, no, Cher was with David Geffen. And David Geffen can be any of the things he wants. Wants. But, yeah, she's like, david Geffen saved my life. Got me through Sunny, like, helped me get a show on the air, is the only reason I survived that divorce. I loved him so much. We got engaged, and then we decided not to. And I married Gregory Almond. And I'm like, what? Go back to David Geffen? So something very, very weird happened there that she is, again, not telling us, but we do have to talk about how one day. Go ahead, Dom.

[Dominic Pupa]

No, I'm just trying to think. Sonny died in January of 1998, and that book came out later in the year. So, I mean, it's possible maybe that she was trying to protect Sonny or that maybe his. His death was so recent that she didn't want to reveal too much about David in the original book.

[Chelsea Devontez]

No. You know what I think I'm remembering now, and if it's correct, it's gonna stay in the podcast, is that she was writing this book and then Sunny died.

[Dominic Pupa]

Right.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And I think she pulled out a.

[Dominic Pupa]

Lot of things that makes sense that.

[Chelsea Devontez]

She put in the book. Cause she didn't want to, like, disparage his death in some way.

[Dominic Pupa]

And he had young kids at the time, too, with his last wife. And probably.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And the book ends with Sunny's death and her talking about how she went to speak his eulogy, which, by the way, for everyone. Sunny got married. Sunny cheated, had lots and lots and lots of women. He did get married and stayed with a woman for a very long time. The person to deliver the eulogy at his funeral, not his wife of years and years, Cher, but she's with David Gethin. And he's like, hey, have you ever looked at your contract? And she's like, what's a contract? What's a checkbook? I get all my money from Sunny still. And he's like, let me read the contract. And he informed her, honey, you're an indentured. Servant, legally. You work for Sunny for a corporation Sunny owns called the Cher foundation. Sunny owns 95% of it, and your lawyer owns the other 5%. So the company is called Cher. And she doesn't own a piece of. The lawyer owns more than she did. And a lot happens, and she freaks out at him and Liz, like, how could you do this to me? And Sunny shrugs and says, I don't know. I just always knew you'd leave me, Mom. Thoughts on that? Because I just saw your eyes roll up into your head, and I think they cracked your skull.

[T Mom Z]

It just seems to be a thing with straight men that they think there's that deep insecurity that you're going to leave me. You're going to leave me. So that's why they start, you know, controlling you.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Your every little move she said he made, it's like, I was never gonna leave you. You made me leave you. And he's like, no, no.

[T Mom Z]

Whenever I hear that, I have no sympathy. I have no empathy for men who say, but I was afraid you were gonna leave me. And that sort of is why everything else happened in our lives. I couldn't count on you. You didn't make me feel secure enough. You're too pretty. You're too talented.

[Dominic Pupa]

Right?

[T Mom Z]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. Well, he can go in the tennis clothes. Fire, as far as I'm concerned. And she calls Lucille Ball. And she said, I called Lucille Ball to ask for her advice. I told her, lucy, I want to leave Sunny. You're the only one I know that's ever been in the same situation. What should I do? Lucy and her husband had also become famous working together as stars on tv. And he was a huge womanizer. Then Lucy had left him. She told me, fuck him. You're the one with the talent.

[T Mom Z]

Short and sweet.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I love that. Oh, I love it so much. And I will say, because, you know, we are covering the Lucille Ball episode soon, and she did not put this in her memoir. So I need to read it. What Cher said, which is that her lawyer becomes Mickey Rudin, who represented Frank Sinatra and who had also helped Lucy extricate herself from her marriage and TV show with Desi Arnaz. As part of the settlement, Lucy bought out his stake in their company, Desilu, which she later sold for millions. That's. You'll. It's odd how hard it is to get that information, but there we have it. Okay, so they, like, they're in divorce court. It's all extremely dramatic. It's intense. She calls the network executive and is like, cancel the Sonny and Cher show because I am contractually obligated to this man and I need it to go away. The first network president in history to do something good, says, okay, doesn't re up this very popular show so that, like, she can become free of Sonny. And when they finally divorce each other after he tries to steal Chaz from her, they go outside and the paparazzi's there, and they say, how do you feel? And Sunny grabs Chaz chair, dips her, and French kisses her. And then she's like. It was so funny. I started laughing and he started laughing. She was like. And then we became best friends again.

[Dominic Pupa]

Which is what they. I mean, it's so fucked. It's so. It's so fucking crazy.

[T Mom Z]

Were they best friends again, though? I mean, you know, ish.

[Chelsea Devontez]

They have a lot of laughs.

[T Mom Z]

They can still laugh. They sounded like they could still do things professionally if they wanted to and play off each other, but, yeah, I don't. I don't think they were best friends again.

[Chelsea Devontez]

You're right. They're not best friends, but they.

[T Mom Z]

They're not trying to actively murder each other, which is most divorces.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, but then he will still punish her up and down as things go along.

[Dominic Pupa]

Right?

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay, now, because we Also read Tatum O'Neill's memoir on this podcast, I have to state that after she breaks up with David Geffen for reasons that are absolutely nowhere to be found in this.

[Dominic Pupa]

Memoir, but can be seen from space, gone.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay, okay, okay. And then for some reason, she's gonna go to the Allman Brothers show. And she said, we go to the show with her best friend Paulette. And she said, Paulette was very excited, said we had to go. So we all went. David of David Geffen, who. She has broken her engagement with her sister Paul. Paulette. And Tatum O'Neill, who was the token 12 year old who'd been staying with us now, Dom, I can't. As someone. You didn't read Tatum's book, did you know. So tell. Tell me what you thought of this sentence that she gives no context for.

[Dominic Pupa]

I. I thought about Drew Barrymore. I don't know why. I just thought like, this is this. Is that. Like, this is just that this is a Hollywood kid. There's like a certain type of Hollywood kid that grows up so very differently from the way the rest of us do. And she. She was one of them for sure. Her. Drew Barrymore. There's like a small list of those kids.

[Chelsea Devontez]

But if you're hearing that she's With. There's no. There's no one Tatum's even related to.

[Dominic Pupa]

No, It's a token 12 year old. Like, that's a. That's the first time you've heard that phrase. Like, there's not supposed to be. Oh, and There's a random 12 year old with us, too. Everyone has one at.

[Chelsea Devontez]

At the Allman Brothers show.

[Dominic Pupa]

At the Allman Brothers show.

[Chelsea Devontez]

So listen, y'all. You have to listen to our Tatum O'Neal episode. It is the. It is the craziest book I've ever read on this podcast ever. But I know from that book that Tatum was so starved for a parent or female attention that when she got a little guest role on Cher's sketch show, she begged to come live with Cher and get out of her horrifically abusive life and would, like, live with Cherry Cher for weeks and would talk shit about Gregory Allman and Raquel Welch to Cher so that she would spend more time with her, the 12 year old who was out partying with her.

[Dominic Pupa]

Are you listening to the things you're saying? Cher is literally like. You know, Cher is. Is sort of like a Hollywood Forrest Gump in. In a way. You know, we're like, how Forrest was just like at the signpost, the historical signpost for everything. Cher was everywhere.

[T Mom Z]

Knew everybody that moment.

[Dominic Pupa]

Just. And so casually. Most of it like. Like Chelsea just said about just mentioning Tatum O'Neal and then not getting back to it. That happens a lot in this book, actually.

[Chelsea Devontez]

A lot.

[Dominic Pupa]

She just mentions people and we're supposed to not pause and say, whoa, whoa.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Dominic Pupa]

Can we. Yeah, can we go back?

[Chelsea Devontez]

All I could think is, like, if I had not read that memoir and yelled about it on this podcast. This is the craziest thing I've. I mean, it's the craziest thing when you do know this, but it's like, share. Why? What, you're just gonna say a 12 year old was with you and move on and then later. Okay, Durango, here's.

[Dominic Pupa]

I'm sorry to interrupt you. It might be the same reason why she's left other stuff out, too. I mean, someone could probably get in trouble if Cher is without paperwork helping to raise a 12 year old.

[Chelsea Devontez]

But it's already in Tatum's book. And it's only. It's like these few weeks where Tum is, like, obsessed with Cher, an adult, and, like, asking to be her daughter. Well, okay, here's your dingo. They have a party and she's like, mick Jagger's there, by the way. Mick Jagger's all over this book and other places. She's like, lucille balls there. And then she said, joni, as in Joni Mitchell. Tatum as in Tatum as the brothers Carole King. And I'm like, wait a minute. So the 12 year old's still there? And then y'all are going to your. Your face is going to my. I lost it. Her best friend Paulette. Guess who she was dating. Everyone. Ryan O'Neill. Who is Tatum's father.

[T Mom Z]

I missed that.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Mom, can you just. Just real quick, Mom. Ryan O'Neill. In the tabloids back then, did everyone know he was a piece of dog shit? Or are they just like, what a guy?

[T Mom Z]

Well, I don't think the public. I think the public said, what a guy. I mean, I.

[Chelsea Devontez]

But that's what I'm saying. Like, did anyone in the press kind of know that this was a dog?

[T Mom Z]

Everybody knew the stories would slip out, but, you know, they have good pr. They. And we didn't have social media. And so a lot. Unless you were really paying attention, you might not realize that Barbra Streisand can't stand. And just what a monster he is in private life. Just the way he treated his own children should tell you what a putz he was.

[Dominic Pupa]

Cause back then, he was love story Ryan O'Neal. I mean, everyone did love him. I don't think that the general public got an inkling of him being a beast until he fell out with Farrah. Cause Farrah was America's sweetheart, which is.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Like years and years later. Yeah, okay.

[T Mom Z]

But it sounds like he was bad to them. And speaking of Ryan.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Oh, just. He can also go in the tennis trash can fire.

[Dominic Pupa]

He's there, isn't he? Didn't he. Yeah, he went there recently. Yeah. Yeah, permanently.

[Chelsea Devontez]

The tennis trash can fire.

[Dominic Pupa]

He's playing tennis down there.

[Chelsea Devontez]

That's right. That's right. He is. So tell me what you think, Mom. So she clearly had some deep, deep love and connection with Sunny. We learned about that relationship. Clearly had a deep, deep love and connection. Something with David Geffen. We learned about that relationship. Relationship. Then she's like, yeah, I married Gregory Allman.

[T Mom Z]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I didn't really get the feeling that. I mean, she doesn't have a lot of love for this one. Looking back on it, what'd you think?

[T Mom Z]

It was almost a flash in the pan marriage. You know, there was press in the beginning and People magazine, and he washes my hair. And it sounds like they had a couple good years together, if even not many. Yeah, but the drugs. The drugs were the big issue with him. And she walked away from that.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, well, she says she got pregnant with him and knew she wanted to have the child, and if she was gonna have the child, then she wanted to be married. So they flew to Vegas, they got married, and then she went and saw her doctor who said, hey, I could help you get rid of these cysts you have if you want to take them out. And she realizes he means I could help you have an abortion. And. But she doesn't even write it in the book, but you know, it's happening. And she said, I knew I had to make a choice, and I knew what it was. It made it harder that I didn't have Gregory to talk about it, but I made the decision, and I was so grateful to my doctor's compassion for giving me one. And then she said the following morning, nine days after our wedding, nine days, I filed for divorce myself, citing irreconcilable.

[T Mom Z]

A little less than two years.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Well, yeah, No, I said, thank God. And then she was like. And then I went back to him for two years. So, yeah. But it was nine days when she knew. I also really want to commend Cher for all the times she talks about the abortions in this book that her mom has that almost kill her, that when Cher has it, other people in her life. She talks about how horrific it was to make it happen and how her mom almost died.

[Dominic Pupa]

Every time. Literally every time she almost died, died.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And she takes a moment to state what's happening now. And she had to hide, like, what's happening now? And she had to, like, go all these places where, like, had she died, people would have just dumped her body because it was illegal. And then she was like, as it's.

[Dominic Pupa]

Happening now, I knew none of that stuff, like, that's never, I think, come out before, but all I kept thinking about was when she. She was in that HBO movie if these Walls Could Talk. She played an abortion doctor in. In that movie. And it's not having known about everything that she went through and her mother went through. I now want to get a hold of it and look at it again just to watch the performance, because it's her. The way she describes it is. So. I mean, not that there's a way to not talk about it personally, but it's just. It's very. It's so detailed and so harrowing that I want to look at her playing that role again, knowing now what. Like, what. What backed it up.

[T Mom Z]

That does seem very intentional.

[Dominic Pupa]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Gregory was Always, to me, like, a very classic rebound relationship. It's like she went from being taken care of to having to be a caretaker. The guy, like, all good rebounds, he's a million times hotter than the guy that you. You've escaped from. Hotter and exciting and. And all that stuff. But, yeah, it did. Like Linda just said, it did flame out pretty quickly. Like, it did it in the grand scheme of things. It wasn't.

[Chelsea Devontez]

She.

[Dominic Pupa]

She knew it was the wrong thing to do, but at least she did get her son out of it.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And everyone hated that they were together. Right. Well, what's wild is that she's like, okay, when David Geffen and I were together, he remade me. He got my show on air. Everything was incredible. And he had my back in the show. And now I have this, like, horrible, terrible husband who I can't stand, but also, I keep going back to who's in and out of rehab, but I can't run the show alone. I know. Let me call Sonny Bono and ask him if he wants to work together again and do the show. A show together. And Sonny's like, I'd love to, kid. And they re up. So basically, they had the Sonny and she Cher show. Then Sunny went and had the Sunny show, which tanked because he's a bitch in the. Probably should be saying this for Sunny fans. I'm really sorry, y'all, but it tanked. And then Cher had the Cher show, which did really well. But then this is the transition where she's going to bring Sunny back to keep the show afloat the moment after they do all the paperwork, and Sunny's going to come back to help run the show, which I said, oh, man, she always needs a dude there. She then tells him, by the way, I'm pregnant. So she said, we were exes starring in a variety show together, and I am pregnant with my new and future ex husband's child. That's how crazy. That reunification is even crazier than the examples we thought because she then has Elijah, their son.

[Dominic Pupa]

Can you. I mean, this is just one of these share stories where I think, why isn't this talked about in, like, history of telling television classes? Can you imagine Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez hosting a variety show now, and she is pregnant with Bradley Cooper's child? Like, it just. These are things that would not happen today. Like, they would not happen.

[T Mom Z]

Ben's ego could never handle that.

[Dominic Pupa]

Oh, absolutely not.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Ben and JLO were never really beloved until the second time. It's like, imagine a couple that, like, represented A good old America for so long. It's really wild. Well, there's four more stories we have to cover, but then we're kind of at the end one. Tina Turner came on the show twice with her then husband Ike. Tina was a breathtaking performer and became a friend. One of the days we were shooting, she came up to my room before we went on asking if I had some cover up. She had a bruise on her arm that she didn't want showing on camera. I told her I had something that would work. She sat down while I looked for it. And then quietly, very straightforward, tell me how you left him. I looked at her and told her. I just walked out and kept going. Which is really gonna. I mean, Tina is going to walk out and run across a four lane highway. And in her other book, my First Time, she talked about how both she and Tina Turner came together about not knowing how to write a check and not having a checkbook and their husbands literally owning their names. Isn't that wild? Yeah, mom, I know you were a big Tina Turner fan.

[T Mom Z]

Big Tina fan.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay. And then the other story is. Is the other Toni and Maria moments of the book. The true romance of the book. Here it is. I'd been at a party at my manager's house when I spotted an extraordinary looking woman with a massive blonde curls and a white pantsuit with what seemed like thousands of multicolored buttons covering the bust of her top. Giving my manager the side eye, I asked, who's that? He laughed. Don't make up your mind based on appearance. You're gonna love her. She's a fabulous country singer. Her name is Dolly Parton. He was right. And she is still my friend to this day. When we were looking for someone to play the embodiment of good across from the evil for my special, I knew she was just the woman. And that's where those iconic photos come from, where like Cher is playing like the evil witch and Dolly Parton's like in a white big robe. I just love the Tina and Dolly moments in this book. That's when I was losing it. I just loved it so much and okay, so there was something. You can both laugh at me. But when this book ends on a four year relationship with Gene Simmons from kids.

[T Mom Z]

Oh, I forgot about that.

[Chelsea Devontez]

What?

[T Mom Z]

Yeah, they were everywhere. Photographed everywhere. They were. People couldn't believe it.

[Dominic Pupa]

What?

[Chelsea Devontez]

I mean, okay, she's. She has a type. She loves a freak.

[Dominic Pupa]

There was a reality show. Gene Simmons did a reality show for a few years and I don't know if they're married anymore. But Shannon Tweed, his then or possibly current wife, Cher, appeared on the show. Like, she's still friends with Jean, and they met, if memory serves, they met at maybe a jewelry store and they just went shopping together, hugged it out, and she just sort of left. Was very much a cameo appearance, but deliberate. I mean, she didn't wander into scene. I mean, they. They asked her to come do the show.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Wow. Yeah. I mean, listen, my mom and I have talked for many years about how my mom reminds me and herself of Cher. And Mom, I gotta tell you, her being friendly with the exes. And I'm also like, you've all. You all. You both have that in common, too, where it's like, she can put on a good smile and, like, do the right thing for, like, the moment.

[T Mom Z]

There are a lot of things about Cher that I could relate to in terms. And anyone who has that, oh, by the way, at 14 years old, I was groomed and whisked off kind of story. Like Melody Griffith. There's quite a few.

[Chelsea Devontez]

There's so many of them.

[T Mom Z]

You know, my heart really goes out to all of them and how long it takes when you don't have good friendships or mentorships to figure things out, if you ever do.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah.

[Dominic Pupa]

I'm trying to think of an ex that she doesn't refer to fondly. And I can't honestly, like, she really does, even when Gregory died. And I love that we're calling him Gregory because she calls him Gregory. She really loves a full name. She really like Philip and Gregory. But she. I can't remember, she released a statement or tweeted when Greg Allman died, but also just, you know, talked about how much she loved him and how troubled he was and what a shame it was that drugs were in his life. But she really does speak about all of these people fondly.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. And their son Elijah has a lot of the same struggles that I think will be in Part two, hopefully still coming out next year. But you don't know. Well, the whole book ends on her finally realizing she's gotta go be an actress. And she meets with Michael Nichols, who says, there are two types of women, okay, Rude and you're not the type I need. And she says, you're going to rue the day. And. And if you know Cher, and I know everyone on this podcast knows. Share. He. This is going to come back around in a wild way in memoir, too. So great cliffhanger. But then she's, like, really trying to act and she's trying to act, and no one will take her seriously. And she runs into an old friend named Francis Ford Coppola. Her old friend Francis names. My God. And she writes. Frances was sympathetic, but added, the problem is that until you do something, no one will believe you can.

[T Mom Z]

So true. I'm true to that.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah. The worst that can happen is that you fail. But at least you'll have tried. I told him his advice reminded me of something Shelley Winters once said to me. If you're really serious about acting, Cher, then stop fucking around. And to New York. Francis smiled. Okay. Then he said, so what are you waiting for? That's how the book ends.

[Dominic Pupa]

The end.

[T Mom Z]

Gut banger.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Oh, I can't wait.

[Dominic Pupa]

I can't.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I truly.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay, it's time to do the book Dull test. First question. Was the author vulnerable and the sharing of her truth? Mom, I'll start with you.

[T Mom Z]

That's so much more than I thought she'd be. But I would say that she was 85% forthcoming. Not 100%.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay, Dom, what do you think?

[Dominic Pupa]

I'll agree with that number, actually, because she was. It was really revelation after revelation. There are people in this book who do not survive it very well. There are people whose reputations are tarnished based on her honesty. But I think, as we've discussed here, she could have gone further with several people in the book. Yeah, but that's not who she is. So. Sure.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I. I agree with both of you. I think. Mostly, yes. And. And she gave the things she'd never given before. But I think she's going to keep some for herself, which, listen, we respect.

[Dominic Pupa]

That's like the shariest thing to me. Like, that makes me love her more. I'm. I'm glad that she kept 15% of it to herself. I'm glad because I love her. I'm glad that she honored herself and said, I'm going to give everyone as much as I can, but I'm still going to keep a little bit of it here. Because truth be told, like her obsession and her love and affection for her mother is on almost every page, at least of the first half of the book. She could have gone hog wild on her, too, because Georgia made many mistakes, not the least of which was hit her. Yeah. Keeping abusive men in her life, you know, when she was a child. But she could have and didn't. I mean, she loves these people. She loves these people. Every one of these people who. Who has not done right by her. She loves them. And it's not for me to say whether or not that's right or wrong, but it is. There is something endearing about it. There is something maternal about it. To me, I don't know. I'm not a person that forgives people easily. She seems to be the opposite of that, so.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And I'm not a person who forgives, period.

[Dominic Pupa]

Right.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay, second question. Mom, we'll start with you. Was it entertaining to read?

[T Mom Z]

Very, very. For someone who's, you know, watched her from afar and tried to get next to her at the Rose Parade. When I first had discovered her on the radio and I was with my grandparents in Pasadena and I wanted so bad to go hand her a rose, but I couldn't get close to their powder blue Cadillac convertible. I dressed like her. I saved up my allowance, bought my first wide bell bottoms, and showed my belly button. In fact, it really almost got me kicked out of school.

[Chelsea Devontez]

That's amazing because Cher was the first person to show her belly button on tv, right?

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah.

[T Mom Z]

She made it okay to do that on national television and everywhere else. But, yeah, had to have more. Cher couldn't get enough share. So for me, every little thing was so interesting. Just to knit her story together in such detail was really. Was really a great.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay, Dom. Was it entertaining to read thoroughly from start?

[Dominic Pupa]

I was captivated from start to finish. I. I'm a super fan. I was three years old in 1974 when I first saw the Sonny and Cher Variety hour. And I pointed at the TV and I said, mama. Because my mother looked identical to Cher back then. She had the same. She still has the same haircut, my mother, I might add.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay, I love that.

[Dominic Pupa]

And I don't know how much of that is the re thinking it was my mother. I don't know if that's the reason that I fell in love with Cher. I don't know if Cher made me gay, but it's likely. And I don't. It was. If you are a super fan of hers, this book answers almost every question you would ever have. Like, every sort of nebulous thing that she talked about in my first time or in interviews is answered here. It's so incredibly detailed that if you. I think even if you don't know who Cher is, you would read this book and fall in love with her. The fact that she details what outfit she was wearing in every single scene that she recounts in this book is great because if you. If you follow her, you know a lot of the outfits that she's talking about. And if you don't, you're just like, I I don't know if I can even judge it objectively because I am such a fan of hers, but I don't feel like the level of detail she gave bogs the book down. You know what I mean? A lot of times in memoirs, people want to be so detailed. You're thinking to yourself, I don't. I don't need this information. But because it's Cher and because she really did start so many trends, all these details are, dare I say, important.

[T Mom Z]

Yeah. Very relevant to culture.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Okay. I love this. Now, I love that we are on zoom, because it means neither of you will be able to slap the shit out of me when I say that. I was a little disappointed in the entertainment department because I agree. I think it was extremely important that this be, like, in the annals of history. Like, this needed to exist. This Bible needed to exist. She had never given answers. I did. Like, the one thing that'll sum up my feelings about the book is that, like, 40 pages in a sentence ends, and then she writes, wow, wtf? Like, what the fuck? And it was so funny, and it was so share. And she's using WTF, right? But the first 40 pages had been written so elevated. And then this and then this and then this. And it goes, wtf? And I. And I wrote, there she is.

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah, there she is.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And, like, I think she wrote all of this. I don't think this is, like, ghost written in that kind of way, but there were a few moments where I would say, there she is, and where she would. She's so twisted and funny and iconic and odd. And I did feel like the level of detail in this book did bog some of her personality down. Yeah, well, it was a little bit to what happened to me with Rue's book, where because I love them so much and know so much stuff about them, it was a little bit less revelatory to me. So then the writing style mattered more. But that being said, I'm sure every single person will disagree with me, and I love that, and I like that, and that's what I want. Okay, final question. Did reading this book elevate your life in any way?

[T Mom Z]

Kind of. Because when I see another survivor, it's really heartening. And, yeah, it makes me happy that we've come at least this far, which clearly we look to be backsliding. But anytime I read a story about a woman that's been able to, you know, figure things out, sort things out, get another woman on board, whatever it takes.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that. All right, Dom.

[Dominic Pupa]

I Don't. I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. I don't think that it elevated my life. I mean, it filled in every blank that I wanted to know about the first half of her life. Like, I don't love her more than I did before I read it, because I don't think I could have loved her more. You know, I was afraid of being disappointed when I read the book, and I wasn't at all. It was better than I thought it would be. I do think what I know about her life, which is. I would say a lot. I've done two shows about Cher and, like, her effect on my childhood, like, you know, for shows, for Pride, comedy shows and stuff. And I've talked about. I came out in tandem with Cher interviewing Chaz when Chaz then came out as a lesbian in the Advocate. And it was sort of instrumental in. In that whole moment of my life. I think that the second book is going to change my life, because it's. Cher has always been very honest about being disappointed when Chaz came out and truly not knowing what to do with her brain when Chaz announced that they were trans about not knowing how to process that. And I think it was really helpful for people like my parents to see someone come forward and say, you know what? I love my kid. But I honestly wasn't okay with this at the beginning, and it's okay that I wasn't okay with it. She had done an Oprah interview, and in the interview she did with Chaz, where she talked about how she. She really was. And this is a gay icon who had a million gay friends before people had gay friends. And when she found out that her child was gay, admitted reacting not great to it, which is why I love Cher. It's why everyone should love Cher, because she's not afraid of telling you that she made the wrong choices, you know? So I think that second book is gonna change my life. Really. I don't care how gay that sounds. I'm gonna be a different person at the end of part two, for sure.

[Chelsea Devontez]

I am so with you. Like, she wrote certain things in this book, like decorating Chaz's room in Head to toe. Pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink. And finally driving away from the house. And Chaz has the courage to. To say, mom, I hate pink. And all the. She has these, like, little things that she's dropping about her relationship with Chaz that I think, like, I hope we hear more in the second book. I also know in the second book is coming the utter humiliation from Hollywood that she survives to go on to become an actress where, like, everyone makes fun of her and makes her a punchline. Weirdly, like, those are the stories in my bones that I like, can't wait because she's Cher. Like, how could Cher ever be embarrassed? I'm also. I think I'm a little bit a no on this one, even though I loved it and I love her. But, like, I've also done Cher shows. No big deal, John. And one of our first. Our first podcast live show about the rebrand was a Cher show.

[Dominic Pupa]

Oh, wow.

[Chelsea Devontez]

And we all dressed like Cher. My mom dressed like Cher. We wore matching dresses. I will post the pictures. I sang Cher songs, everything. We had a Cher drag queen. Everything was Cher themed. And I did my, you know, like, little TED Talk thing. And in my presentation was the time that Cher and Madonna had a feud for 20 years. And then at the Women's March, posed for a photo together. And they say, cher, we thought you hated Madonna. And she said, I didn't hate her. I just think she's a cunt. That's the Cher that I want in the next book to come alive.

[T Mom Z]

I was going to ask if I there have what's. Have a favorite Cher quote. That's probably your favorite Cher quote, Chelsea.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Well, that one. And when her mom says, cher, when are you gonna marry a rich man? And she says, mom, I am a rich man. Yeah. Wait, what's your sign as well?

[Dominic Pupa]

Yeah, I can't. I don't know that she could say anything better than that.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Mom, what's yours?

[T Mom Z]

I had one from the early 90s. Cher was getting a lot of facial lasering. And when all of that was still kind of new for her skin, and so she was in and out of clinics and they would try to catch pictures of her. And she finally said to the camera, she said, if I want to put my on my back, it's nobody's business but my own.

[Dominic Pupa]

That is a classic. That is a classic. That's how I feel.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, I love that. I love that so much. And listen, her having bangs obviously elevated my life. My bangs icon. So I'll say yes. Okay, Mom, I once bullied you into starting a T Mom Z account on Instagram. Do you want people to follow that? Are you gonna come back and start posting?

[T Mom Z]

I may be ready.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Maybe. Ready. Okay, we'll see. So she's @TMOMZ on Instagram. And Dom, please tell people where they can buy tickets to your holiday show. And obviously, everyone who listens to this podcast, listens to Fixing famous people. We are siblings, so they all know about the podcast.

[Dominic Pupa]

You're our mother. We're not siblings. You're sharing. I am your mom and I are Chaz and Elijah. That is. That's how it works in this universe. That makes you Georgia, Linda, obviously.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Yeah, mom, that makes you Georgia. I'm Cher. Oh, my God. Dom is Chaz and. And Chris is a live chat.

[T Mom Z]

I survived the Georgia life. I get to move on.

[Chelsea Devontez]

That's right.

[Dominic Pupa]

You can buy tickets to my holiday show. My website is domentary.com or you can go to the link tree on my Instagram page, which is at Dominic Pupa. And. And it starts December 1st in San Francisco, and I hop all over our wonderful country, closing in Atlanta on December 22nd. So please come, everyone.

[Chelsea Devontez]

Go get a ticket. It's gonna be so funny. Both our podcasts are selling candle merch. This is like Real Housewives of Potomac where I'm like, I said I was gonna do two wick, and you're like, I already had three wick in the works. So get our candle merch as well. And just, you know, just be smelling good at holiday.

[Dominic Pupa]

And please come to fixing famous People as well on Instagram. I'm glad you were reminded me. Chris will kill me. Go to ixingfamousfeel and listen to our podcast. We have a great time over there, so it's a lot of fun.

[Chelsea Devontez]

It's so good. It's so good. Thank you both so much for being here and covering the Bible and good day. A huge thank you to our podcast producer, Christina Lopez, our executive producer, Jordan Moncada, our sound engineer, Marcus Hamm, and our amazing associate producer, Jeff Jaron. Padre, I also want to let you know that if you love audiobooks, but you want to support independent bookstores, go to Libro fm, where it is easy to download audiobooks and support local bookshops. And right now, you get two Libro FM audiobooks for the price of one with your first month of membership using code Trash. That's right, Trash. T R A S H. Two audiobooks for the price of one at Libro fm. And if you have questions, go to the Patreon Chat Lounge and I will see you there.