The magazine Cher Exposed (2000) tried to set the record straight about Cher’s alleged surgeries with this graphic:
I’m not a person who would ever get plastic surgery (and I’m old and collapsing like a haunted house right now so I’m being tested on that). I don’t like the idea of “elective surgery” and I tend to think people look better au natural, warts and all.
But I also think Cher became an unfair poster child for plastic surgery, especially considering plenty of examples of real body dysmorphia in Hollywood. Especially considering Victoria Principal was so open about plastic surgery all through the 1980s (her husband was a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon) and she didn’t even see as much heat as Cher did. It just all came across as hypocritical and vindictive to me. (And I don’t even like plastic surgery.)
My friend Julie’s first chat handle on AOL’s Instant Messenger was OzzyBat (she is a big Ozzy Osbourne fan), so mine became RemovedCherRib, as if that mythical surgically-removed rib was out there in the world somewhere living its best life.
Cher didn’t think any of it was so funny. Cher regretted even being honest about any of it and so in the 2000s went quietly on with her life doing whatever the hell she wanted.
It was just unfair to say her surgeries kept her exercising like a young person, since the old and new surgeries were just that, cosmetic and had no effect on her endurance or ability to still do long concert tours into her elder years.
The 1960s
From 16 Magazine:
Dear Cher, Help! I’ve got a serious problem. I have a big nose! I’m dead self-conscious about it. My figure is fine—I get whistles when I walk down the street. It’s just this nose of mine that makes me blue. How can I cure these self-conscious feelings? Mary, Wickliffe, Ohio
Dear Mary, It seems to me that your problem isn’t quite as serious as you think! Having a big nose hasn’t stopped quite a few stars from making a go of it! Barbra Streisand is a prime example—and so is Sonny! Sonny found that when he felt self-conscious about his nose, people seemed to be more aware of it. The minute he accepted it as part of himself, no one ever made a bad remark again! Accept your nose as an unchangeable part of you—because it is—and forget about it! I think you’ll find that other people will too.
The 1970s
In Cher’s memoir she said Sonny had gotten in so many fights over his long hair and clothes that it ruined his nasal septum and he ended up getting a nose job eventually. Cher said she liked his new nose.
In the magazine Cher Superstar (1975), Cher had told Rona Barrett she had surgery for a breast lift after Chastity was born.
The 1980s
Cher had her nose done in the mid-1980s.
The 1990s
Tips fromForever Fit (1991)
Cher has a lot to say about the flack she got over plastic surgery:
“I’ve killed myself at the gym to have this body….I’ve busted my butt….but the press wants to write off my body as the result of cosmetic surgery…It amazes me people are choosing to bust my chops over this”
She says, and I think she’s 100% correct, that criticizing her about surgery was just a way to dismiss exercising and Cher’s exercise commercials. As if working out was a dumb idea because celebrities get plastic surgery.
Humans.
In Forever Fit Cher repeats that she’d had her nose done and her breast lifted twice after pregnancies with Chas and Elijah. She said at least one of these was a plastic surgery nightmare that led to a bad infection and scars which meant the procedure had to be redone a few times. She admitted to fixing her teeth with braces and retainers to “improve shape of my mouth.”
All in all, she would prefer to look like Michele Pfeiffer, she said. She thinks the removed rib rumor came from a French paper that also claimed she had had liposuction and cheek, chin and butt implants. Cher said there would be scars all over her body at that rate.
But she never backed down and once famously said, “if I want to put my tits on my back, it’s nobody’s business but my own.”
She says if you’re interested in plastic surgery to find the right doctor. See the before and after pics of work they’ve already done. Get endorsements from people you know and trust. Make sure the doctor is a real plastic surgeon and not just an M.D.
Plastic surgery is “not a panacea” Cher says or a replacement for exercise. There are mental benefits, she says, to working out.
The 2010s
In the article “What Cher Has To Say About Beauty” (2019) from Into the Gloss, there are Cher comments about plastic surgery:
“People should do what makes them happy. Frankly, when I saw my face ten feet tall in close-ups on a movie screen, I wanted my nose done because it really bothered me. My teeth were straightened and brought out with braces and a retainer.”
