Why it took Cher 7 years to write her new memoir – and why she’s only halfway done

Cher’s new memoir has been seven long years in the making.

“It was really, really hard,” the entertainer told Yahoo Entertainment about the book project she started in 2017, “and sometimes I just wanted to jump off a bridge.”

For all her talents and accomplishments, the list of which is long—the most recent being a recent induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for her musical career that spanned seven decades—the struggle was true authorship Cher: The Memoir, Part 1, which is out now. Having dyslexia was a factor, but so was dragging through a lifetime of memories, many of which were admittedly “very painful”.

“Some of them were easy, some of them were fun, and some of them were really, really hard and … I’m just getting over it,” the 78-year-old “Believe” singer said. “Because we were forced to make the book again and again. Eventually we were down to the wire. We worked … 11 hours” a day.

With us, Cher refers to the book being written three times with as many ghostwriters.

“I probably should have made it four,” she added.

“When I first read it, it wasn’t about stories, it was about information,” she said. “I thought, This isn’t going to work for me. Information isn’t important. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t get you anywhere. Stories get you somewhere.”

“It went through many, many changes” to get to where it is, she said. When we spoke, Cher said she hadn’t seen the final version.

Although it is a relief that the book is finished and out in the world, the project is technically only half over. Along the way, a decision was made to split the memoir into two volumes – part one now and part two in a year – because it was taking so long to complete.

The stories in Cher: The Memoir, Part 1 details of her life until she breaks into acting in the early 1980s. We learn that her mother, Georgia Holt, was close to having an abortion, but changed her mind, and in 1946, Cheryl Sarkisian (not Cherilyn, which Cher thought was her birth name until 1978) was born.

Cher had a difficult and unstable childhood. She was placed in a Catholic orphanage for a time as a baby and later left to live with family friends as a toddler when her mother was free with a rich guy she met in Reno, Nev. Cher constantly moved and changed schools during her actress-singer mother’s many marriages and had a rotating cast of father figures who came and went. Her biological father, Johnnie Sarkisian, was a heroin addict.

Cher grew up on a fast track. At 15, she dated Warren Beatty, who was 25. Her mother was star struck and expressed no objection to the age difference or Beatty’s reputation with women. At 16, Cher was living on her own. That year, 1962, she met Sonny Bono, 11 years her senior, in a coffee shop. Originally platonic roommates, the pair became one of the most famous — and fashionable — musical duos of all time.

While Sonny and Cher were magical on stage, their marriage was lonely and Sonny was in control. He burned Cher’s tennis clothes in the backyard after she talked to a man after a lesson. She claimed Sonny cheated on her with dancers, actresses and sex workers. Their split was acrimonious when Cher learned she was under contract to Sonny and had no money of her own. He accused her of being an unfit mother in their custody battle over Chaz.

Cher credited music executive David Geffen, who she dated after Bono, for helping her dig out of a hole professionally. She married musician Gregg Allman, father of her son Elijah Blue Allman, but he struggled with drug addiction and they divorced.

“There’s a lot of life in there,” she said of the 411-page book, which is so Cher, including all the F-bombs you’d imagine (about 40 by our count).

“I did everything from memory,” she said of the ghostwriter process. “We would just sit there. Julia (Leatham) would write everything. Mostly she would let it be in my words. I have a distinct way of speaking. … Sometimes I pause where you might not expect to pause or think it belonged, but that’s just who I am.”

Cher said she “didn’t write anything down because I don’t like writing” and her challenges with dyslexia. “It’s just too much for me to handle.”

The learning disability is also why Cher turned to Stephanie J. Block, who won a Tony Award as her in Broadway’s The Cher Showto help record the audiobook.

“I once told a director, I can read or I can act, but I can’t do both at the same time,” the Oscar winner said. “Because I am dyslexic, it is really difficult. It takes so much more effort and I make a lot of mistakes.”

Cher called it “the best of both worlds” that she recorded the beginning of each chapter in the audiobook, and then Block took over.

“She does a great job,” she said. “It’s not an impersonation of me. … I said, ‘Stephanie, don’t try to do me. Just think of me in your mind.’ She knows me. So I think people will be really happy.”

Cher is happy too, now the first part is out and she has a moment to vent. But her next deadline is just around the corner.

When we asked if part two was due at this time, she replied, “No, are you crazy? I don’t do things on time.”

Cher: The Memoir, Part 1 is out now.