cher and the white house: a history
turning back time for a deep dive into the diva & the highest office in the land
Cher claims her political life began when she burned the “Nixon for President” sign that her mother had put on their lawn. She quickly replaced the sign with a JFK one and has been politicking ever since.
The first campaign that she worked on was Robert Kennedy’s in 1968. Sonny was still a Democrat at the time and even went to the DNC in Chicago, but Cher stayed home because she was pregnant. Sonny met George McGovern at the convention and in ‘72 they supported his campaign.
On an episode of The Sonny and Cher Show in October 1976, Cher tells the audience that she will be voting for Jimmy Carter in the upcoming presidential election. Sonny officially comes out as a Republican stating that he will be voting for Ford. Many years later, he claimed that he only registered to vote for the first time in 1987. I don’t know if that is true, or he just didn’t want to admit that he used to vote Democrat.
Cher campaigned for Jimmy Carter with her new husband Gregg Allman. Carter and Allman met one night at the Georgia Governor’s mansion, bonded over music, got drunk together, and quickly became friends. Carter needed to find a way to raise serious money for his campaign, and he did it largely through benefit concerts. These not only provided the much-needed funds, but they also got young people invested in Carter. The Allman Brothers raised so much money that Carter has said many times that he couldn’t have won without them.
Cher’s first visit to the White House was with Gregg in January 1977. The couple were invited to a reception at the White House, one of the inaugural balls, and other celebratory events the weekend of the inauguration. They were photographed all over Georgetown that weekend while shopping, and I love these pictures of them.
I’m not sure how many parties they attended, but by my count, at least 3 just based on Cher’s different outfits/hair. The Carter Inaugural “weekend” was a 5-day celebration packed full of events, with 7 parties (he specifically wanted them called parties rather than galas) on the night of the actual inauguration.
The couple had dinner with President Carter and the First Lady on the first night that they ate in the White House. Cher and Allman had originally only been invited to come for a tour with some other campaigners, but Rosalin asked the two of them to stay for dinner. In the HBO documentary, Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President (which I highly recommend btw), Gregg and Carter laugh and tell this story about the fact that Cher drank the water out of the finger bowls because she didn’t know better. If my ex-husband told that story in a presidential documentary I would be so pissed. Rude!
By the next election, Cher had split from Allman so she wasn’t really involved with Carter’s reelection campaign. I guess you could say that Gregg got the president in the divorce. Carter remained a close friend to Allman until his death in 2017. Cher and the former president were both at his funeral.
This photo was the catalyst for this entire deep dive. It is so cursed, and I have been obsessed with it ever since I saw it. You are probably thinking…What is this photo? How? Why? Dyslexia, baby! This is from October 1985, when Reagan (who had very recently decided maybe he should start acknowledging medical conditions) declared October to be National Dyslexia Awareness Month. To celebrate, Nancy invited the hottest dyslexic celebrities to the White House for a ceremony and gala honoring “outstanding learning-disabled achievers.” Cher was pretty vocal about her dislike of the Reagans, but not as vocal as she is about her struggle with dyslexia.
I am obsessed with Cher’s outfit choice and can only imagine what Nancy thought of this ensemble. She also wore it to a SNL cast party a week later. Sustainable queen! Tom Cruise is giving man-in-a-fedora energy in the photo. I don’t have anything to say about Caitlin, but her presence does bring a special something to the group. What did these people talk about? You can only bond over a shared learning disability for so long. I would love to see the security footage.
Famously, this event is the inciting incident that led to Cher and Tom Cruise dating. They had met briefly at Madonna’s wedding before this, but they got to spend a lot of time at the White House bonding over their dyslexia. They secretly dated for a brief time, and Cher considers him to be one of her all-time top 5 best lovers. So there’s something positive that came out of the Regan administration!
I guess Ronald was busy that day because I couldn’t find any photos of him with the group. Don’t even worry about it though because she had already met him years ago when he was a guest on the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour.
With her Best Actress Academy Award in hand, Cher got to work campaigning for Michael Dukakis in 1988. His cousin, Olympia Dukakis, famously played Cher’s mom in Moonstruck. Bet you didn’t know they were related because I didn’t. She manages to bring up her support of Dukakis in most of her post-Oscar interviews. In Playboy, she says she thinks he will be the greatest president we’ve ever had. She also claims that if Bush wins she will be terrified and won’t be able to sleep so long as he is in office.
A sleep-deprived Cher visited the White House again in September 1990. She is the national spokeswoman for the Children’s Craniofacial Association, an organization she got involved with after starring in the movie Mask where she played the mother of a child with a craniofacial condition. She traveled to Washington D.C. to support the families of children testifying before the House Budget Committee. Barbra Bush invited 10 families to tour the White House and Cher joined them. Once again putting her political views aside for her advocacy work.
Sonny Bono started his political career in 1988 when he became the mayor of Palm Springs. The city wouldn’t let him paint his restaurant, so he just became the mayor. He was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1994 and to this day remains the only member of Congress to have scored a number-one pop single on the Hot 100. His wife took over his house seat after his death in 1998. While in office he co-signed the Defense of Marriage Act, despite promising his son, Chaz, that he would support gay marriage.
Cher responded by continuing to stand not only with her child but also with the friends and fans who supported her throughout her career. She became even more vocal in the fight for LGBTQ rights, speaking at national events for HRC, GLAAD, and PFLAG. She had become disillusioned with the political system in the early 90s, but her advocacy once again led her back into politics.
Cher hasn’t met George W. Bush, but the president did meet U2’s Bono and thought that he was married to Cher…. so that’s something. In the pre-twitter days of the Bush administration, she iconically called into CSPAN a few times to voice her opinion on him.
Cher met President Obama at an event for LGBTQ activists in Los Angeles. She attended the event with Chaz and her mother Georgia. She said that he was very sweet and funny, and he asked her mom for anti-aging beauty tips.
Cher supported Hillary Clinton’s political career from her first Senate run in 2000 through her 2016 presidential campaign. Cher went on a mini-tour of gay vacation hot spots to sing, fundraise, and rally voters. With each ticket requiring a minimum donation, the large crowds raised millions in Miami, Fire Island, and Provincetown.
While she has never met the man in person, her tweets raging against Donald Trump are legendary and must be mentioned. I could do an entire post on Cher’s tweets, but this one is a particularly good one. Slay!
Cher received her Kennedy Center Honors during Trump’s presidency. He broke with tradition and chose not to attend the awards, nor did he host the customary reception for honorees in the White House. This robbed us of what would have been another Cher in the White House photo and an iconic pop culture moment. Cher stated that she was thrilled that he wasn’t coming and wished that she could have gotten her honors while Obama was in office. When asked what she would do if Trump changed his mind and showed up she said she would tell him to “go away.”
Cher met President Biden in 2006. After hearing him speak she wanted to make sure that he wasn’t bullshitting, so she just showed up at his office to interrogate him. He won her over, and she has been supportive of him ever since.
During his campaign, she appeared at events to speak and perform, raised millions of dollars, and helped to rally volunteers to keep going. She also recorded this song which is, in my opinion, the definition of camp.
Since President Biden was inaugurated during the pandemic, a lot of the festivities had to be adjusted. The night before the inauguration, Cher performed for the president and first lady on Zoom with other Biden supporters including Barbra Streisand. Shockingly, Cher did not sing her Joe song and Barbra did not sing “People” at the event called We The People.
This is my call to action. Biden needs to invite her to the White House ASAP. At this point, the Republicans that she publically disliked have had her there more than the Democrats that she campaigned for. She deserves more than a Zoom performance. Now that Lady Gaga has been appointed by Biden to “advise the president on cultural policy,” she can make it happen. Maybe Cher can come in December and sing songs from her upcoming Christmas album? Perhaps a Presidential Medal of Freedom? Someone put me on Gaga’s committee, I’ve got fabulous ideas!
Thank you for reading this incredibly niche American History/Political Science lesson. I’m sure that all of this is critical for the APUSH and APGov exams, so it’s really important that I educate everyone. I hope that you gained a new appreciation for Cher’s many political eras and hair journeys, I hope that you stream Happiness Is Just A Thing Called Joe, I hope that the picture from the Reagan White House keeps you up at night, and if anyone from the White House is reading I hope you get Cher back to visit pronto.