Cher ‘Traumatized’ David Letterman by Telling the Truth
Cher and David Letterman are friends now. The talk show king and the music legend have a lovely relationship these days, but things got off to a pretty rocky start. For years, Cher absolutely refused to sit down for an interview with Letterman on Late Night with David Letterman. She had her own reasons, though Letterman didn’t know it then. When she finally agreed to appear, for a fee, of course, she reportedly traumatized the late-night host by being completely honest with him.
Cher once ‘traumatized’ David Letterman
It has been almost 40 years since Cher first sat down for an interview with David Letterman for Late Night with David Letterman. Their first interview, which was years in the making, is considered one of the most iconic moments in the show’s history. It is also a moment that “traumatized” David Letterman. After a clip from that iconic interview resurfaced, Cher shared her memory of how everything happened and why her now-friend was traumatized.
According to Parade, Cher revisited the event during a 2024 performance. While on stage, she told the audience that back in the 1980s, she had been approached to appear on Late Night with David Letterman multiple times but always turned it down. Apparently, Letterman’s vibe didn’t pass the sniff test. When his team called in 1986, she finally relented, telling them she’d do it for $28,000. While they initially refused, they returned and made the deal. While preparing for the interview, a production team member asked Cher why she was so reluctant to come on the show. She said she told them, “I think Dave is really funny, and he’s really smart, but sometimes, when he has a guest on that he doesn’t like or he doesn’t respect, he can be kind of an assh***.” That seemed to be the end of it, recalls Cher.
Apparently, no one expected Cher to say it live on air. When she finally sat down with him, he asked her about her reluctance to appear. Letterman was completely unaware of what she was about to say. Instead of a canned, polite response, Cher revealed that she had turned down the offer because she thought he was “an a*****e.” Letterman was clearly flustered by the brutal response. Several outlets have looked back at the moment and consider it a defining one for the late-night host. It was an off-kilter moment that humanized him to viewers. Letterman has joked, over the years, about how traumatizing her response was.
How many times did she appear on the show after that?
David Letterman was reportedly “traumatized” by Cher’s brutal honesty. Still, it didn’t stop him and his team from bringing her back for more appearances. Once they got the ball rolling, Cher was more than happy to appear on his shows. She did so many times before he stepped away from traditional TV. In total, she sat for interviews with Letterman a staggering 9 times. She appeared on the show 10 times.
Cher sat down with Letterman in 1986 for the infamous interview in which she called him an a*****e, then appeared again in 1987. She also appeared on Late Night with David Letterman in 1989 and 1992 before he moved to a new network. Once Letterman launched The Late Show with David Letterman on CBS, Cher was a frequent guest. She appeared for the first time in 1995, then returned in 2000, 2003, 2010, and again in 2014.
Her final appearance came in 2015, as Letterman wrapped up his tenure at CBS. Her last appearance in 2015 was not an interview but a performance. It served as a farewell gift for the longtime late-night host. Interestingly, Cher has not appeared on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, the Netflix series Letterman launched in 2018.
