HERE SHE GOES AGAIN
THE STAR OPENS UP ON TRUMP, TOURING AND HER NEW ALBUM
Cher’s career resurgence
It would be an epic showdown – Cher vs Donald Trump. The legendary performer can’t stand the US president and isn’t shy about letting everyone know via her no-holds-barred Twitter account.
So the news that she is to receive an honour usually presented by the president had everyone anticipating an encounter that could be, at the very least, extremely awkward.
However, Cher says that Donald won’t be presenting her with the Kennedy Centre Honours – awarded to those in the performing arts for lifetime contributions to American culture – at the ceremony in December, to her relief.
“When I was told about it I thought, ‘Oh my God, I wonder if the president is going to be there’,” says the Grammy,
Emmy and Oscar winner.
“But he isn’t, so I’m thrilled. Now I am just trying to figure out what I am going to wear.”
She might just have to hold fire on her excitement, though – the White House says no decision has been made yet on whether Donald (72) will participate in the presentations. If he does show up, he may be unable to resist sniping back at the singer, who has called him a “f***ing idiot”, compared him to Hitler and said she’d rather chew glass than support him and his policies. It will certainly be memorable if they do come face to face.
In the meantime, Cher (72) is basking in what is shaping up to be one of the most successful periods of her career. As well as being named as a prestigious Kennedy Centre Honours recipient, she is embarking on a worldwide tour that kicked off in Auckland last month, plus a musical about her life, The Cher Show, will open on Broadway in November.
She steals the show in the film sequel Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and has just released an album of ABBA covers, called Dancing Queen, that has shot up the charts around the world and may just be the best-selling album of her entire career.
Rolling Stone magazine’s reviewer wrote that Cher made the songs sound “as if they should have been written for her in the first place,” while ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus was blown away by the way she sang Fernando for the movie. “She makes Fernando her own. It’s her song now,” he says.
In turn, Cher was astounded by the response to the album. “I’m happy, thrilled, shocked, dee-lighted, ecstatic, over the moon, dancing around my room and on and on,” she tweeted. “Thank you so much for making this the biggest album of my life.”
She admits that by the time recording on Dancing Queen was finished, she felt like she had been in the studio “most of my adult life.” That, she says, is because the songs, written by lyricist Bjorn and composer Benny Andersson, weren’t easy to sing.
“I was a little cranky with Bjorn because of the way he writes, and then I realised he writes this way because he doesn’t write in English. So he tells the story in a more interesting way. And I didn’t realise how intricate the
music was. I thought, ‘Whoa, Benny has really got some stuff going on there.’”
Her set of ABBA songs went down a treat during her Auckland concert, but Cher confesses it’s not so much getting up on stage and belting out both covers and her own classics that drives her to keep performing.
“I like the people in the audience,” she says. “Performing is a kind of ministry – for that 90 minutes or two hours, your job is to take them out of themselves. When you’re enjoying art, you don’t have a chance to think about your mortgage or how much you dislike Trump, or if you have an illness or whatever.
“Sometimes I don’t want to do it. But then I think at some point I won’t be physically able to do it or people won’t be interested. So for now, I’m still going.”