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Cher undoubtedly has lived a life worth documenting, and luckily she’s done that for us. In two parts. Cher: The Memoir, Part One was released last week, and the stories recounted in that volume have been every bit as juicy as we’ve wished for and more. Perhaps craziest of them all is the time Cher, Sonny Bono, and Francis Ford Coppola walked into a bar. Only it wasn’t a bar, it was the St. Regis Hotel in NYC, and the trio accidentally ended up at a soiree hosted by Salvador Dalí. Dalí invited them to dinner at his studio the next night, only when they got there, Cher sussed out pretty quickly that they were walking into the tail end of an orgy. I’ll let Cher take it from here, in her own inimitable, vivid voice:
When staying at the St. Regis Hotel in N.Y. while visiting a friend, Cher and Bono ran into Francis Ford Coppola who was filming a movie. They also bumped into the prolific surrealist artist, who invited them to a party that evening he was hosting with his wife, Gala.
Cher said that everyone in their suite “was either beautiful or bizarre and all of them looked as if they were high,” calling the experience “like stepping into a bad Fellini movie.”
Despite detecting her discomfort, Dalí invited Cher and Bono back for dinner the following evening. Upon arriving at Dalí’s studio, Cher realized that an orgy had just taken place. She recalled a “large room where people were naked or in various states of undress.”
“One bra-less chick came out wearing a see-through blouse” that she likened to cellophane wrap. The “Believe” hitmaker attempted to look unbothered while Bono and Coppola, 85, were “sissies,” huddled together on the other side of the room.
Cher then realized she had sat on something, and pulled out a “gorgeous painted rubber fish” from beneath her that had a moving tail. She assumed it was a child’s toy but Dalí told her it was actually a vibrating sex toy.
She immediately dropped the fish and Bono and Coppola doubled over laughing. She kept her composure, but “inside, however, I was — how can I put this? — screaming.”
The group, including the “bizarre orgy people” and Cher, Bono and Coppola, went out to dinner. Several minutes into the meal, Dalí said they had a “previous engagement” and relocated to a table a few feet away. Cher, Bono and Coppola were beyond relieved and couldn’t stop laughing.
“I’m sure Dalí thought we were all cretins, but by then we were beyond caring,” she concluded.
I mean, the scene is every inch the cornucopia of disparate items crashing together that I’d expect from the gravitational impact of Cher’s life intersecting with Dalí’s. Things I’m delighting over, in no particular order: of course a bash hosted by surrealist Salvador was “like stepping into a bad Fellini movie.” I love Cher calling Sonny and Francis “sissies,” and totally believe her account of them in that situation. (Sidenote: what is it with Coppola randomly dropping into Cher’s anecdotes? First we learned he saw her in Vegas and told her to start acting, and now this revelation!) I did find it a bit rich, though, for Cher — CHER! — to seemingly deride a woman at the orgy for going braless under a see through blouse. And at this moment, may I remind us all of her iconic 1980s Bob Mackie Oscar ensembles, not to mention the “naked” dress of his that she wore to the 1974 Met Gala. So it’s a touch the pot calling the kettle scantily clad, is all I’m saying. And finally “Salvador Dalí gorgeous painted rubber fish sex toy” needs to start trending on social media after this.
Photos credit: UPPA/Photoshot/Avalon/Avalon, London Features-LFI/Avalon/Avalon, Holland/Retna Pictures/Avalon/Avalon and Getty
