‘Shocked’ Cher reveals her real name after birth certificate mix-up

By Page Six | Created at 2024-11-25 12:14:59 | Updated at 2024-11-25 14:27:08 2 hours ago

Cher wrote in her memoir that she was “shocked” finding out her real name. Getty Images

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.

The singer’s birth certificate listed “Cheryl” instead of “Cherilyn.” Getty Images

She made the discovery while changing her name to Cher years later. AFP via Getty Images

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?'”

Her mom, Georgia Holt, reacted by saying, “Give me a break.” Penske Media via Getty Images

“I was only a teenager, and I was in a lot of pain,” Holt explained. FilmMagic

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.

She came up with Cherilyn by combining her own mother’s name with Lana Turner’s child’s name. Lifetime

Before that, Holt had “no idea” what to name her baby girl. Lifetime

“I like it,” the Goddess of Pop continued. “I mean, Cher is just fine. Just plain Cher.”

Cher bared all in her memoir, from detailing her dark relationship with Bono to sharing the ups and downs of her and Allman’s short-lived marriage.

She also identified Val Kilmer as the only of her previous partners to break up with her.

Cher’s memoir came out on Nov. 19. Harper Collins

In it, she described her marriage to Sonny Bono and more. Getty Images

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.”

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