The Tragedy Of Cher's Childhood Was Just So Sad

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Cher might be one of the most well-known names in Hollywood, but when she was a kid, being a world-famous singer and actor was just a faraway dream. Tragic details about Cher's life are well documented, but it was only when she released her memoir, "Cher: The Memoir, Part One," that fans got to have a detailed peek at her sad childhood. The Oscar winner grew up in an unstable home. Her mother, Georgia Holt, was trying to carve out a career in the entertainment industry, while her father, Johnnie Sarkisian, was a drug addict chasing his next high. When Holt became pregnant with Cher, she initially opted for an abortion, but changed her mind at the last minute. "Thank God she got off that table, though, or I wouldn't be here to write these pages," the pop star asserted.  

As the living legend told USA Today in 2013, "I heard the abortion story when I was a teenager." Aside from almost not being born, Cher also didn't know her real name for over 30 years, and she only found out what it was when the "Believe" hitmaker legally tried to change it to Cher. She had always thought her full name was Cherilyn, but the singer's birth certificate stated that her name was Cheryl. After confronting her mother about this discrepancy, Holt explained that she tried to communicate to the nurse that she wanted to name her daughter Cherilyn, but somehow that didn't come across. In her memoir, Cher said her mother advised her not to make such a fuss about the whole thing, imploring, "I was only a teenager, and I was in a lot of pain. Give me a break." But growing up without knowing her legal name was hardly the most tragic thing about Cher's childhood. 

Nowadays, Cher owns a lavish California mansion, but when she was a child, the future superstar didn't even have a decent pair of shoes to wear. Her mother, Georgia Holt, tried to make a living singing at bars, but their family's finances were pretty abysmal. "I was kind of a jock and I was always running out of shoes before we had money," Cher recalled at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in 2016, per Page Six. "I remember one time, it was a particularly dismal time for me where I had to rubber-band my soles to my shoes so that I could have shoes to go to school."

The "If I Could Turn Back Time" hitmaker's father, Johnnie Sarkisian, divorced her mother when she was only 10 months old and, as a result, he was completely absent from her life. Cher only met him for the first time when she was 11, and the first thing she noticed was his shoes. As she noted during a 2025 interview on "Live with Kelly and Mark," "He had really nice shoes on and that was the first thing I commented [on]." Despite the fact that Sarkisian had abandoned her at a young age, Cher couldn't help but be interested in him.

In her book, she detailed the similarities between the two of them. "I watched him with fascination. He seemed relaxed, easygoing, and even-tempered, like me," she wrote, adding that meeting him made her realize he was the "missing puzzle piece" in her life. Still, Cher couldn't quite bring herself to see him as her father since one of her mom's other husbands raised her. Thus, "He was some other word that I couldn't quite put my finger on." 

Cher confessed that being abandoned is one of her biggest fears during a 2024 interview with "CBS Sunday Morning." This is, in large part, because of her tumultuous childhood. When she was a baby, her father, Johnnie Sarkisian, upped and left, dropping Cher at an orphanage before skipping town. The future icon's mother, Georgia Holt, tried her best to garner the money required to take her daughter out of the orphanage, working at an all-night diner to improve her financial situation. "I was just five seconds old," Cher pointed out to Today about the time, adding that this is the reason she couldn't remember anything about it. In fact, by the time Holt managed to acquire the money to get her out, the future Oscar winner could already walk. 

When she got older and understood what had happened, Cher demanded to know why her mother allowed her to be placed in the orphanage in the first place. "The orphanage story has been a touchy one for my mom her whole life, and she didn't want to talk about it. I said, 'Mom, why didn't you just march in and take me?" she shared during her chat with USA Today. Holt told her daughter it was complicated, "She said, 'I didn't have the power. I didn't have any money or a job, and the church was so strong. I'd go see you every day and you'd be crying. You don't know what it was like.'" Even after the singer was out of the orphanage, she didn't live with Holt permanently. "I was not living with my mom, I think, until I was three," Cher told "CBS Sunday Morning." In fact, she was regularly dropped off at the homes of people she didn't know.

Cher might have grown up to become a global icon, but when she was a teenager, she hardly had any self-confidence. The "Love Hurts" hitmaker struggled with dyslexia, and at the time, it wasn't a condition that was well understood. "School was a nightmare," Cher acknowledged while speaking at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in 2016, per Page Six. "I just used to look out the window thinking, 'God, when will this be over? I'm so tired of this s**t. When will it be over?'" Because she was struggling, and because her teachers didn't understand why, the singer eventually dropped out.

When it came to dating and connecting with her peers, Cher also had quite a hard time of it. "When I was younger, boys my age did not like me," she confirmed to The New York Times in 2024. In a REELZ docuseries entitled "Cher: Do You Believe" an old interview revealed that she spent most of her teenage years feeling like she wasn't good enough, yet hoping that one day, things would change for the better. The future icon wasn't exactly the most confident girl and was, somewhat shockingly, pretty shy. 

But behind closed doors she had big dreams, often practicing her autograph. "I always felt that being poor was such a drag, I was like, 'When I grow up I'm gonna be somebody.' I wasn't really sure how, because I didn't know how to do anything," she said, per OK! magazine. In the docuseries, Hollywood Reporter journalist Deborah Wilker noted that what Cher initially lacked in self-confidence, she made up for in resolve: "She was always a little insecure about the way she looked, but she knew she had something.