Dr. Phil 9/27/2004

[oh my cher]

I can do in front of 50,000 people what I can't do in front of five.


Robin: Now, what do you think is the most lovable thing about you?

Cher: I'm really funny. I'm really, really funny. And I'm kind of cute.

Robin: Very cute.

Cher: Kind of cute. I'm a little bit girly.

Robin: Very girly.


Growing up, there weren't very many people that reinforced the idea that you could look different and still have some value.


I always, always wanted to be a mother.


It's like everything I do, I never have an ounce of confidence, I just do things.


I felt guilty. Another thing I felt which was crappy was people will know I wasn't a good mother. People will know this. And I wasn't there to bake cookies all the time.

[oh my cher]

I grew up in a really poor, poor family.


No one ever says to you, I mean they show you how to make bisquits at school. They show you how to take your drivers license test. No one prepares you for anything thats real.


We didn't have clothes we didn't have shoes sometimes. It was rough.


There's a great deal of bipolar on everybody. They would call it in my family "the gift".
It gives you some strange something, some energy, some creativity but there's a huge price to pay for it.


I didn't do well in school. I was dyslexic. I knew I wasn't stupid but didn't know why I wasn't smart.


My mother was the only person that would say "You won't be the prettiest, you won't be the smartest, you won't be the funniest, and you won't be the most talented. When you put all the things you are together you are the most special."

There was nothing in my life that showed that what she was saying was the truth except her saying it. That's where the magic is.

[oh my cher]

Every year you got to grow into the new you. That's what I'm learning. I don't learn that easily.


"She has this ability to be very real from moment one."-Robin on Cher


I had lost four children before Chas. I had to lay in bed for like the first three months and then I had to just stay in the house. So I learned how to play pool and learned French so it wasn't a total loss.


Then after I became a mother I thought what have I been doing all this time? What did I do before I did this?


Chastity- She was my new best friend. It was the most fun. It was like everyday is Christmas.


She was out there with older people, grown ups.
The first time I took her to kindergarton she was sobbing, sobbing so frightened to be there. She was just terrified of little kids.


I had been with Sonny from when I was 16 to 27 and when I left him I was still 16. I hadn't made any progress, truthfully. So I started out so late in life with already a daughter who was 4.


I still wanted to have a good time and I had to work. So I made a lot of bad choices.


It's like Kate Hepburn said "If you're going to do this job, don't have kids" But I wanted them you know? My life would have been nothing without them.

[oh my cher]

Cher on Elijah & Chastity:


Somehow Elijah and I talk through osmosis.

We had our first fight, he was nine months old. We had a fight. How do you fight with a nine month old child? You know?

They had completely different personalities.

He is very intelligent, very intelligent. He is constantly reading. He must have gotten that from my sister. Constantly, constantly reading.

His mind is very expansive and he just dances to his own tune. He doesn't really care you know?

He never saw his dad *Gregg Allman*

My mom looks at my sister and I and still calls us "the kids."

[oh my cher]

I was a tomboy.


She came out to everyone but me. You can't do that. I'm Cher.


I always feel like I have to take charge cuz I kind of have to take care of everybody in my family.


I would have just gone to her when she was little little little and said "Sweetheart if you ever have anything that you want to talk to me about, just know that there is nothing that you can ever tell me that I'm going to be upset about. And if you're confused, I might be able to help you."


There is nobody besides Barbara Streisand and Madonna that have more gay friends than I do.


I did something that was not good. I put him into a boarding school when he was young and it was the wrong thing to do.

He wasn't the person that could have gone there.
I was working. I didn't know how to deal with him.

If I had just put him in a bunny suit, I couldn't have done anything more wrong.


I'd say to him "Are you high?" and he'd say "yeah."

[oh my cher]

My sister said "You always suspect her of doing drugs. You don't ever give her the benefit of the doubt. She's the good one in the family. You got to stand up for her."

So I get off the telephone with my sister and Chas calls me and she goes "Mom, I have to go away to rehab, I've been doing drugs"

And I went "Oh da that's so fabulous. I'm so excited. I said 'let me call you right back I have to call your aunt.'"

---
"Hello I just got off the phone with your niece...."

---

My father was a drug addict. My grandfather was an alcoholic.


It just somehow jumped over my sister and I and I don't know why. But my kids had it in them. The recipe was right. They had it genetically. It was already there, predisposed.


They're doing so well right now, they're doing so great. I'm so proud of them.


The one thing I told them was, "Don't waste your young life."


The reason I used to be out a lot when I was younger was cuz I just wanted to dance. In life, I'll just sit home.


My two best friends who live up the road. They're always calling me going "Come on. Come on, let's go do this, let's go do that."


Leaving him *Sonny* was the pivotal moment of my life.

I was a child when I met him. I was a child the whole time we were together because I wanted him to take care of me and he wanted to. He liked the fact that I didnt have a lot of my own ideas.

As I started growing older, after I had Chas especially, I just thought I cannot live in this tiny little box. I just can't do it and I was terrified to go. But I also knew that something was really, really wrong and that I was never going to be who I wanted to be and stay in this relationship.

It scared me to death. I almost jumped off a balcony instead.

[oh my cher]

I've broken up 2 relationships on the road.

I really enjoyed my relationships. I had great people and I had wonderful times.
My marriages were a little bit more scary to me.

If I found the right person, you know I'm really smart, I'm really funny, I have lots of things other than running around have naked on stage. People just don't know it because that's the stuff they see.


I'd need sense of humor first, good morals, somebody that I could just connect to and someone who is outgoing because in life I'm not really very outgoing.

I'm not interested in flashy. I did all that.

Usually people are very, very insecure and nobody wants to be Mr. Cher.

It takes a really special guy to even want the position.