SHE is the only US artist to have had No1s in six different decades.
But Cher, who comes to the UK this week on her sold-out world tour, has a startling confession — she hates listening to her own music.
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The 73-year-old icon says: “In general, I’m not a huge Cher fan, I’m really not. I’d rather do the singing than listen to it.
“I don’t want to listen to what I do, I don’t want to see it and I don’t want to hear my voice.”
Other things she tries to avoid include drink, drugs and watching TV — traits she credits for her eternally youthful looks.
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But she does admit to having a soft spot for chocolate, saying: “I can eat three bars in a row.”
On staying trim, she adds: “I have to work at it.
“I don’t drink and I have not done drugs. I hate watching TV. I take care of myself and I am a good eater.
“I never had to worry about a pound until I was 50. I could eat whatever I wanted. But after that, you have to work out.”
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Cher comes to the UK this week ahead of two huge shows at London’s O2 Arena as part of her Here We Go Again tour.
It is the first time she has played live for almost 15 years.
Despite her distinctive vocals, Cher has become almost as a famous for her outfits, including the enormous blue wig and matching gown she wore for a concert in Austria this week.
But Cher has revealed she gives away her iconic designer clothes to charity shops in her home town — then spots fans wearing them.
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She says: “Sometimes my stuff goes to second-hand stores. And sometimes it goes to this girl I know who sells it. And then it goes to charity.
“Someone will come up to me and say, ‘I bought this at so-and-so store. Is it really yours?’ “I go, ‘Yeah’, or, ‘No, you got totally ripped off’.”
Cher was born Cherilyn Sarkisian, in May 1946, to dad John, a truck driver, and mum Georgina, a part-time model.
Through her 50-year career since, she has often been described as having reinvented herself time and again. But it is a description Cher disagrees with.
‘I don’t get reinvention’
She says: “I’ve been the same person since I was six years old. So I don’t get that whole reinvention thing.
“I mean, you do something that’s not successful and you’re ‘bored’, and you do something that’s successful, and you’re ‘reinventing yourself’.
“I do stuff with hair and costumes, and things like that, because what am I going to do? Come in a pair of overalls and a white T-shirt? I mean, that would be boring.”
Back in the Sixties, the future star was making a living by dancing at small clubs along Hollywood’s Sunset Strip.
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It was there she met singer Sonny Bono, who set her on the path to stardom.
Together they formed duo Sonny And Cher and had a string of hits including I Got You Babe, which soared to No1 in 1965. They married and had one child, Chaz Bono, now 50.
Cher later had another son, Elijah Blue Allman, 43, with second husband Gregg Allman, 69, who she later divorced.
But even at the height of her success, the singer admits to feeling out of her depth.
She says: “I’m really not outgoing and I never have been. I’m kind of shy. When I’m on stage that feeling goes away, but right before I go up I feel like I am going to pass out.
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“I couldn’t even sing in front of Sonny. Like in the middle of the night, when he wrote I Got You Babe, I was sleeping and he goes ‘Cher, Cher, come here’.
So I go there and he says, ‘Right, sing this’. I said. ‘I don’t want to’ and he said, ‘Cher, it’s only me, just sing it’. So I did and afterwards I said ‘I don’t think it is very good, I am going back to bed’. It wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong.”
Sonny and Cher’s relationship came to a shuddering halt after a series of arguments, and they divorced in 1975.
But at the same time her career was an express train that could not be derailed.
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In the 1980s she established herself as one of Hollywood’s leading ladies with a string of blockbuster films, including The Witches Of Eastwick and Moonstruck, both released in 1987.
She won a Best Actress Oscar for Moonstruck, and the chart hits also kept coming. In 1998 she reached a commercial peak with the dance-pop album Believe, the title track of which became the biggest-selling single of all time by a female artist in the UK.
And last year she made a triumphant return to the big screen, playing Meryl Streep’s mum in Abba sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.
Her previous “final” tour — 2002–05’s Living Proof: The Farewell Tour — became one of the highest-grossing concert series of all time, earning around £200million.
‘I’ve gone up and down so many times’
But her professional life has not always been as straight-forward as it sounds.
She says: “I’ve had many times when I thought my career was over. I have gone up so high and then fallen down so low.
“I did the films Witches, Moonstruck and Suspect in a row, then I made an album. Then I went on tour to publicise all of those things then I came back and just fell apart. I was sick for two years.”
And reflecting on her early days of fame, she says: “We used to have to work second jobs to make ends meet.
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“You couldn’t make the kind of money you can make now.
“People used to have to have regular jobs during the off season. It’s not like now, where you can get millions of dollars, and have clothing lines, and open restaurants and stuff like that. And there were no people who taught you how to dance. Or hairdressers, or make-up people.
“It was just you. It was just different.”
Now single, Cher has dated leading men including Tom Cruise, 57, and Val Kilmer, 59, who both starred in Top Gun.
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She says: “I’m on good terms with most of my ex-boyfriends. Val just spent time at my house and it was fun just goofing with him. Whenever I see Tom, I’m happy to see him.”
Cher’s farewell tour in 2005 was supposed to be her last. Yet despite having £300million in the bank, she changed her mind last year after deciding she is now a “better singer” than she was when she was younger.
She says: “This is my last tour. I’m 73. I skip across the stage then once I get around it I walk.
“My mum is 93 and she keeps going, ‘Cher, age is just a number. If you don’t bother it, it won’t bother you’.
“I keep going, ‘Mum you are crazy’. It is so embarrassing because I keep on having these farewell tours. I’m not 100, but I’m close.
“I, honest to God, think this is the end, not because I can’t do it any more, but because I’m older than glass and people are just going to get tired of coming to see me.”
