‘Shocked’ Cher reveals her real name after birth certificate mix-up
Cher spent years not knowing her real name.
The singer wrote in her memoir, released on Nov. 19, how “shocked” she was when she “decided to legally change [her] name to simply Cher.”
While the Grammy winner wrote in “Cher: The Memoir, Part One” that she “believed Cherilyn was [her] name,” it was actually listed as “Cheryl” on her birth certificate.
Cher’s mom, Georgia Holt, asked her daughter to “give [her] a break” after the discovery.
“I was only a teenager, and I was in a lot of pain,” the late actress said of giving birth to Cher in May 1946.
The songwriter noted, “My mother had no idea [what to name me], but the [nurse] insisted so she replied, ‘Well, Lana Turner’s my favorite actress and her little girl’s called Cheryl. My mother’s name is Lynda, so how about Cherilyn?'”
However, Cher was “officially registered as Cheryl.”
The performer realized this when she made her name “just Cher” in 1979 and dropped the four surnames of dad John Paul Sarkisian, stepdad Gilbert LaPiere and ex-husbands Gregg Allman and Sonny Bono.
“It’s better for me than having people wonder if they should call me Mrs. Allman or Mrs. Bono or Mrs. Bono Allman or Miss Cher or whatever,” she explained on “The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson” at the time.
“I like it,” the Goddess of Pop continued. “I mean, Cher is just fine. Just plain Cher.”
Cher bared it all in her memoir, including dark details about her relationship with Bono and the ups and downs of her and Allman’s short-lived marriage.
She also identified Val Kilmer as the only one of her previous partners to break up with her.
Additionally, the Oscar winner penned the story of her virginity loss — which she deemed a case of “revenge sex.”
Cher wrote that after a neighborhood boy “ditched” her post-kiss, she decided to “loan out her virginity to him.”
She explained, “When what turned out to be a massively overrated experience came to an end, I asked him, ‘Is that it? Are we finished?’ Then I told him to go home and never come back.”
