In her newly launched memoir, Cher opens up about her very first meeting with her estranged dad, Johnnie Sarkisian, and how one simple question about a pair of shoes was able to help bridge the gap between them.
As reported by Radar Online, the 78-year-old music icon writes in the memoir about the emotional reunion when she was just 11 years old.
Sarkisian had left Cher and her mother, Georgia Holt, in Cher's toddler years, and she knew so little of him that all she could summon was vague memories of him being a "shadowy figure."
Cher remembers her mother asking if she'd be open to meeting Sarkisian after he contacted her over a decade later after Holt had her high-profile divorce from a billionaire.
Though she had called another man "daddy," Cher agreed to meet him, filled with curiosity but some dread.
"I had no burning desire to see him, but there was a tiny part of me that had always been curious," Cher wrote.
She remembers opening the door and seeing Sarkisian standing before her, which would soon feel like a mirror image with similar features and instant recognition.
The meeting opened with an unforeseen discussion about sartorial styles. Cher asked him, "what are they made of? to which he proudly answered, "Alligator." When she asked how much they were, he told her how much they cost — $1,100 — which left Cher dumbfounded.
As the night went on and Sarkisian even lingered for dinner, Cher watched how he spoke and how he behaved, how much of it resembled her.
"He seemed relaxed, easygoing, and even-tempered, like me," she reflected. The similarities made Cher feel he was a "missing puzzle piece" in her life.
In spite of this effusion of connections, Cher had trouble accepting Sarkisian as her own father.
"Even though I knew that I was Johnnie's child, it was hard for me to think of him as my father," she wrote. Otherwise, she said, he was something she could not define.
The memoir also covers other key moments of Cher's early life, including her rocky marriage to Sonny Bono and her run-ins with iconic figures, including John Lennon and Warren Beatty.
Cher's candid reflections have struck a chord with fans who admire her willingness to tackle uncomfortable family dynamics with candor and vulnerability.
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