Growing up, I assumed everybody sang. My grandfather and uncle played guitar, and my mom and I would sing. When Sonny [Bono, her future husband] and I first lived together, we were just friends, and I needed a place to crash. He was in the music business. One time he came home and I was singing in the bedroom. He stuck his head in the doorway and said, “Is that you? You sing?” He was astounded, and I was surprised that he was astounded.

I didn’t feel my heritage growing up. But I did feel it when I went to visit Armenia after the Berlin Wall came down. Armenians were being displaced and even killed by Azerbaijanis. This older man said, “Cher, please tell the Americans about us.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that America was not going to help.

My mom used to say that if you don’t pay attention to age, it won’t pay attention to you. I’m aware of getting older and I don’t like it, but it doesn’t stop me. When Alexander [Edwards, her boyfriend] took me to an Usher concert, I was bopping around and we were dancing. I feel different than I did 20 years ago, but I don’t feel old.

It was an accident. After we met in 2022, we started texting. He later said, “I think I was in love with you after the third text.” At first I kept saying, “We don’t want to do this. You shouldn’t be doing this, and I don’t want to.” He was only 36—way too young. But he’s very stubborn, and he just didn’t see it my way.

Someone said that after an atomic war, “there would only be cockroaches and Cher left.” I never expected to be here now, still doing what I’m doing. There were times I thought, I can’t live through this, I can’t come back from this, nothing will ever happen again. The trick is you can’t give up. When you hit a wall, back up and go in another direction. For my 2023 album, Christmas, my vocal coach brought me back from the dead, not for the first time. I just keep working. —As told to Edna Gundersen