Being a celebrity can open up unique opportunities, including meeting other high-profile individuals. In her memoir, Cher: The Memoir, Part One, Cher revealed that early on in her career, she was given the opportunity to spend an evening with Jacqueline Kennedy – when she was just 19 years old. It was the beginning of her career alongside then-husband Sonny Bono, but it was an encounter she would remember for the rest of her life.
Sonny and Cher played an intimate show
As Cher explained in her book, in late 1965, millionaires Charles Engelhard, Jr. and his wife, Jane, hosted a “swanky New York society soirée” at the Waldorf Astoria Towers, where former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy was the guest of honor. They had asked Kennedy who she’d like to have invited to the party and “she shocked them by saying, ‘I’d really like it if Sonny and Cher would come and perform.'”
At the time, Sonny Bono and Cher were highly popular, and when they received their invitations, they accepted them, despite only being able to have one rehearsal with their band before their performance. It was no matter, however, and following their practice they went to the Waldorf Astoria to perform before a small crowd of around 20 or so guests.
“We’d never played a house before and were accustomed to arenas, not long living rooms with low ceilings,” Cher detailed in her memoir.
Finally getting to meet Jackie Kennedy
The duo weren’t invited to the dinner that followed their performance, but that worked out just fine because Cher said she was “far too nervous about meeting the widow of JFK to eat, so I couldn’t have cared less.” However, them being omitted from the meal disappointed Jackie Kennedy, who’d wished to speak with them over dessert.
When dinner was finished, Sonny Bono and Cher returned to the party. As the latter explained, the men had “adjourned to smoke cigars, and the women in the room stood up as one and walked out.” Cher followed them into a “mammoth bedroom,” where she eventually sat on the bed with Kennedy.
Cher was only 19 at the time, while Kennedy was 39 years old. Given the age difference, Cher described the former first lady as having “such an elegant bearing that she reminded me of my mom.”
Cher was tongue-tied when speaking to Jackie Kennedy
It was a nerve-racking interaction for Cher, who found herself “tongue-tied” trying to speak with Jackie Kennedy. In the end, she simply asked how her children were doing following the assassination of their father. “They are very well, thank you,” she said to Cher. “‘I Got You Babe’ is one of our favorite songs, and the children love to sing along.”
Cher was thankful for the way Kennedy treated her, having been the “youngest by far” at the party. “She was so sweet and kind,” the singer wrote. “When we went back into the dining room, Jackie sat us immediately to her left and was great at putting us at ease.”
Cher wasn’t the only one to appreciate Kenndy’s generosity and kindness. Sonny Bono, too, revelled in her company.
More from us: Parenting Her Children Saved Jackie Kennedy From Misery After JFK’s Death
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As Cher wrote in her memoir, “Sonny gave her something for the children, two little Catholic saint medals, which as a woman of faith she appreciated. She told him that he looked ‘almost Shakespearean’ with his pageboy haircut, and from that moment on he was like putty in her hands. Well, I think he was putty before, but that only helped.”