(audience cheering and applauding)
- Oh
I'm so sorry that I'm not there,
but there is no way I was taking you out with Covid,
so I'm not gonna pass that on.
But I, I love you so much.
I'm so stoked that you're here.
- I'm happy to be here.
- Thank you for doing this.
Oh, good, good.
I know you've gotta come back, but I can hug you
in person anyway.
You probably don't even remember the first time we met.
I think I was at the Kennedy Center Honors.
I was honoring Reba you were being honored as well.
'Cause I know Adam Lambert was honoring you and I
freaking talked about it for like the rest of the year.
I was so excited.
You're so cool.
And sometimes you don't wanna meet your heroes
'cause you're like, what if they're an ass and you weren't.
You were like, so cool.
And anyway, has anybody ever made you starstruck?
- Meryl Streep when I first met her.
- Oh, Meryl.
Yeah. Well y'all did the movie together.
Silkwood yeah. Silkwood.
- Yeah.
- And then we became
we became friends and we've been friends ever since.
- Oh my gosh, what a friendship.
Let's make that movie.
So how, how did, how do you think, Jimmy
I know your song's been covered by everybody
but how do you think, did Jimmy Fallon
did we do all right with your song?
It's an iconic song nobody really wants to sing.
- Right, okay.
No, it was good. It was great.
I love to hear other people - Oh thank you.
- I love to hear other people do the songs.
It's like when Adam did it
it was so much better than I could have ever done it.
- Okay, well that's not true.
But I was there.
Adam was insane.
He did like that different version of "Believe".
It was incredible.
It was a really great performance.
But then there's you and Adam would agree
that no one tops you doing it.
So, but when, when Jimmy was here
he had this to say about you, which I love.
So I wanna show you.
- I had Cher on, on "The Tonight Show" and I was talking
to Cher and we had a bit where she was gonna slap me
like moonstruck.
And she goes, "You know Jimmy, I don't wanna slap you."
She goes, I go, "Why?"
She goes, "Cause I like you too much.
I don't want it to be like, I don't like you."
I go, "Everyone knows it's a joke it's good."
So she goes, "Or maybe I'll slap you and then I'll kiss
you."
I go, "Great" but tell so the shows
- For art?
- Yeah, yeah. For exactly. For art's sake.
So the show's about to start we're behind the
behind the curtain.
We're gonna walk out holding hands.
And I go, "Hey, which one are you gonna do?
You're gonna slap me or are you gonna kiss me?"
She goes, "I'm gonna do whatever I want, I'm Cher."
I turn over like (Kelly and audience laughing)
- That that's my favorite response.
Do you remember that?
- Yes. But I don't remember coming out like that.
- Oh my god.
(Kelly laughing)
I like him so much. He's so much funny. He's so funny.
He's so ready to do anything which I like
because I'm very childish.
- I, well, I think that's young at heart, not childish.
I think I'm the same way.
That's why I love, he actually, we both debuted
like our first time ever on "The Tonight Show"
when it was Jay Leno, we were there at the same time.
It was both our first times like 20 years ago.
And he's just the nicest guy.
But he loves you.
And we talked even more afterwards, after the camera's off.
Anyway, you're, you have this like, and I know you know this
you have this like magnetism
and this charm about you that very few people radiate.
So it was, anyway, you make people feel good
which is an awesome quality to have.
Well, I wanna talk about feeling good.
So you're in a new relationship now
so how are things and what's your favorite part about it?
Because it's important to find a good partner.
- Ok. Well, on paper it's kind of ridiculous, but
in real life we get along great.
He's fabulous and I don't give men qualities
that they don't deserve, you know, but he's, he's very
he's very kind, he's very smart, he's very talented
and he's really funny.
So, and I think he's quite handsome.
- That's
that's the thing.
Well, all right.
That's the thing for me too, though.
It's humor.
Like, I, I just like somebody to make me laugh.
I wanna feel good too, you know?
And since you're busy making everybody feel good
you want somebody to do that for you as well.
So I, I love that for you.
Congratulations. That's awesome.
It's hard enough just to live in this world.
It's nice to have love.
So it's nice to like have that in your life.
But besides Sonny, is it true that you've always found
that older men are intimidated by you?
- Yeah
I mean, if I hadn't met younger men in my life
I would've never had a date
because older men just didn't like me all that much.
Do you know what I mean? It's like men, my old
well I have had a couple of boyfriends
but that were hovering around my age and,
but they just didn't like me for some reason.
And maybe I'm too younger
men don't care if you're, you know, funny
or outrageous and want do stupid things and you know, and
and you have a strong personality, you know?
I mean, I'm not giving, - Yeah.
- I'm not giving up my personality for anybody okay?
- I know and you only get one life though.
That's my point.
You shouldn't have to defend that either.
You get one life.
Like if somebody makes you happy, go for it.
Like, who cares?
But I, I love that for you and I, Dolly Parton
showed interest and I love her.
We just had her on the show and she showed interest
in working with you and Cardi B, which I think, I think
that trio would be insanely fun.
- You're right.
- Would you ever do something?
- Absolutely. Well, I mean, she and I have been friends
for I for longer than you've been alive.
And, but I would, I would, I always wanted to work with her.
But you know what, people weren't doing this as much back
in the day, you know, like, you know, people would go
on every once in a while, but it wasn't a thing, you know
it wasn't something that people just went, "Oh
that would be cool. Let's do it." But, so, no.
- I do like how music is like that.
It's a little more progressive now in the sense of like
'cause my whole fear, like I wanted to be a background
singer and not a lead singer because I wanted to be able to
perform all these different types of music that I fell
in love with as a kid and made me the singer I am.
And I think that that's what's cool about you, you
you don't stick to one thing like you never have.
And that's what's so attractive
and captivating for me about you musically.
But I don't really think that you
and Dolly are so outrageous, like y'all coming together.
I think those are just two icons that are just
so incredibly impressive musically and as a person
but also you're just like badass musicians and
like artists and like, so I think that would be really cool.
I'm just saying. - Yeah.
(audience clapping)
- But then you should throw in
you should throw in Cardi B in a rap in the middle of it.
That would be awesome.
Well, we've been blessed
with Cher's talents through many decades, y'all.
And now she has a fragrance collection, which no kidding.
I literally, my my friends
and family that we're here right now
like everybody was smelling it
in another room so they don't get covid.
But, but everybody has like, their favorite and it's so
good.
And it celebrates all those decades.
And it's called Cher Decades Eau de perfume.
So I have that collection right here.
I'm bringing it in. Br, br, br,
Marcel, can you bring, can you bring it out in the studio?
'Cause I have it here.
Okay, well first of all, I love,
I love this whole idea.
This is so cool.
First of all, turn back time.
That's clever.
And secondly, you've just been so massively popular
for so many decades.
It's, it's like right on point.
What, what made you wanna do this?
- Well, I had, I had a perfume in the eighties and,
and I was and I really loved it.
And this seemed like it was a time
and I was passionate about it.
And, and I just, I think it's good.
I, I wear them myself and I kind of go back and forth.
I think the nineties, the eighties, maybe my favorite.
I don't know.
It's like, I like this one and then I like this one.
And then I took put two together and, you know, I'm nuts.
- I love no, that's not nuts. That's blending.
I like that too. I do that too. I love all of them.
I will say this one's probably my favorite.
This is nineties right? Yeah, nineties.
And I actually really dig seventies.
Seventies smells really good, by the way.
But will you tell us about each of them
and like why you chose the smell for like each decade?
- Well, because I tried to capture, like in the sixties
I'm thinking incense and modress bedspreads.
And I'm been like, I, that's what I'm thinking of.
And then Tao, who makes the,
makes mixes all of the perfume.
He could take what I was thinking and what I
what I was hoping into the studio and then, and make it.
So, and it took forever.
It took forever.
- I was shocked that seventies didn't smell like marijuana.
I'm just gonna be honest with you up front.
Like, I was like, oh, this woman will obviously smell
like Willie Nelson's bus - Right?
- But no, it's, it smells,
- Oh my God! I been on Willie Nelson's bus, it smells
exactly like marijuana.
- I went on Willie Nelson's bus once and I got a contact
eye.
- I was, I couldn't believe it.
And like these, it was a terrible old bus
but like everybody had,
- It was!
- Yeah it was a terrible old bus. But he, he was great.
And, and just drugs everywhere.
(audience and Cher laughing)
- Wasn't, it was laid out on the table.
It was so amazing.
It was like you, it was like as
if you go into a store like some old school Airstream
in LA and that's the store in LA where they're selling.
It was like, it was everything you kind of
wanted it to be when you walked in
but then when you walked out you were definitely hungry.
- Right?
- But, in honor of Cher's decades collection
we wanted to revisit some
of her iconic moments over the decades.
'Cause there's been so many and so many rad ones.
This is Cher the Memories. Get it.
(upbeat music)
♪ Cher the Memories ♪
(audience clapping)
- Oh, I've seen what you did there, Jess.
All right, let's start with the 1960s.
(audience clapping)
Okay. So you started out doing background vocals
for other artists, which I actually did not know.
Like Darlene Love on "Christmas, Baby, Please Come Home".
No one's heard of that. Mmhm.
And The Righteous Brothers on
"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin" like this is incredible.
What do you remember about that?
Like those times?
Did you know you were gonna, did you wanna go
out on your own first or did you like doing the pgv thing?
Like what, what, how did that all go down?
- I, I, Sonny was working
for Phil Specter and so I would go,
you know and I was staying with Sonny even though he said
I don't find you particularly attractive, which was good.
And so, so
(Kelly laughing)
We were sharing a bedroom.
So I went to this.
So I came, he came home one night, no
it was the daytime in the afternoon.
And I was making the bed
and I was singing and he peeped his head
around the doorway and said, "Was that you?"
And I said, "Yeah" because everybody in my family sings
they're from the south and everybody sings, you know?
And, and so he said, "Well, you sing".
And I said, "Well, yeah".
And so then he took me to the, he took me to the studio
and Darlene didn't show up she, her car was
got screwed up. And so Philip asked me to go in.
And so I went in and then I stayed
until Lovin' Feelin' and I was the only girl on it.
(audience cheering & clapping)
- So rad, I just did not know
- Wait, I'm gonna tell you one - any of that.
- Right, I have to tell you one more thing.
So in the old days
we sang in front of a speaker, no headphones.
So we were all around this little speaker, like about yay
and yay and Philip would say, "Cher, could you move back?"
And I'd say, "Yeah."
And then he'd say, "Cher, can you move back?"
Well, I'm like back there and Darlene's making fun of me
which Darlene did really well.
And he said, "It's great, but you just cut through too
much."
So that was my first experience with singing background.
And I really, I wasn't good to do it
for other people because I was too nervous.
And also I didn't know what I was doing.
I had no idea what I, like,
he would say, "Darlene, Darlene, sing me what you're doing.
Juanita, tell me what, sing me what you're doing."
I thought if he asked me, I'm going to pass
out on the floor 'cause I have no idea what I'm doing.
So, but he never did.
So, but I only knew what I was doing.
I just didn't have the nerve to say
this is what I'm doing, because I really didn't know.