Cher has always been supportive of her son Chaz Bono’s gender identity — and she’s making no exception in her memoir. According to The New York Times, the pop legend makes a disclaimer toward the front of Cher: The Memoir, Part One, writing that she received Bono’s “blessing” to use his deadname to talk about him before his 2008 transition.
“In this memoir, I refer to my son Chaz as Chas, the name he went by during the years covered in this book,” Cher wrote in the book. “Chaz has granted his blessing for this usage. In the next volume, at the appropriate point, I will refer to my son as Chaz.”
Bono — her only child with her late ex-husband Sonny Bono — began transitioning in 2008 before turning 40. He legally changed his name to Chaz in 2010 and made a documentary about the process, titled Becoming Chaz. Per the Times profile, Cher is “restrained and respectful” when writing about her children in the book. (She also writes about her son Elijah Skye Blue Allman.)
Cher, who has long championed LGBTQ people, spoke to CNN in 2020 about coming to terms with his decision to transition. “It wasn’t easy. Like I remember calling, and the old message — the old Chaz message was on the phone — and that was very difficult,” Cher told Christiane Amanpour at the time. “But then you have one child, but you don’t really lose them — they just are in a different shape.”
“Chaz is so happy, so unbelievably happy, and I don’t know what the people’s problems are. They’re fearful, and they just don’t understand how to react to it,” Cher added at the time.
The first part of Cher’s book, which comes out Tuesday, is set to capture her childhood, marriage to Sonny Bono, and her early music career. While she’s expected to drop the memoir’s second part sometime next year, she told the Times that “this book exhausted me… It took a lot out of me.”
“People can say what they want,” Cher added. “It’s who I am. I am who I am. I can’t change it.”
