There have been longstanding rumors and speculations surrounding the famous singer and actress, Cher, suggesting that she is a witch. These rumors have circulated for decades, fueling curiosity and intrigue among fans and the general public. While there is no concrete evidence to support these claims, the belief in Cher's alleged witchcraft abilities persists. One reason for these rumors may stem from Cher's captivating and enigmatic aura. Throughout her successful career, she has portrayed characters with mystical or supernatural qualities, such as in the film "The Witches of Eastwick." This association with magical roles has undoubtedly contributed to the speculation that she may have a deeper connection to witchcraft.

What I Think About When I Think About Cher In ‘The Witches of Eastwick’

Today is Cher’s 75th birthday, and I feel pretty confident in saying that most film and culture obsessives would advise anyone wanting to mark the occasion to watch Moonstruck or Mask or Silkwood. Those more inclined toward kitsch will probably queue up Burlesque or Mama Mia! There Cher Goes This Time. But personally, my touchstone Cher performances is in 1987’s The Witches of Eastwick.

Loosely based on John Updike’s 1984 novel — and directed by George Miller of Mad Max: Fury Road fame — the film concerns a trio of single women whose magical powers blossom upon the arrival of an eccentric millionaire in their small New England town. I can’t remember the first time I saw The Witches of Eastwick, but it must have been sometime in the late ’90s during my regrettable post-The Craft, high school wiccan phase. I seem to remember renting it from the library in my own small coastal town. I remember being a little disappointed that there weren’t more actual spells and incantation, more literal magic. I came away unsatisfied with the whole thing, unsure how I was supposed to understand the film’s version of witchcraft — my primary interest at the time — unsure whether Daryl Van Horne (Jack Nicholson) was supposed to be the actual devil, or if any of that was even the point. (It’s not.)

Clockwise from top: Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon and Cher (Photo by RDB/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

I discovered Updike’s (admittedly super problematic) novel, from which only the most basic plot outline was lifted for the film, in college. But it wasn’t until I re-read it in my late 20s that I really connected with the story, and consequently the film. This was 2009. Updike had published a sequel, The Widows of Eastwick, which I enjoyed enough to revisit the earlier book. And this time it spoke to me: its sardonic nastiness, its misanthropy, its melancholy. The following summer, I found myself under-employed and spending most of my time on Fire Island — yet another cloistered seaside community in which sex and gossip and bitchiness were currency. During the day, I would wander the shady boardwalks listening to the audiobook. Late at night, I would crawl into bed and fall asleep re-watching the film. I would imagine every hot tub party as a witches’ sabbath.

I became fixated on the idea of witchcraft as arising from, as Erica Jong put it, “powerlessness and its concomitant frustration.” At that time, in that privileged milieu of impossibly sculpted bods and absurdly inflated bank accounts, I did see myself as somewhat powerless. Coming up short in both looks and finances, I liked the idea that one’s wit and wisdom could conjure what one wanted. And if that failed, there was a certain comfort in the shared spite of the coven; in, as Updike writes in Widows, the “collusion of rebellion against the oppressions of respectability.”

So, what does any of this have to do with Cher? Well, in the film version of The Witches of Eastwick, she plays the witch with whom I most closely identified. Alex (Lexa in the novel) is inarguably the queen of the coven. She’s the witch to whom both Jane (Susan Sarandon) and Suki (Michelle Pfeiffer) defer, the one they turn to when things with Daryl sour. And it’s obvious why. Even in laughably voluminous pigtails, she’s a steely, statuesque presence. She’s Cher, for Christ’s sake!

Last year, Sarandon made headlines when she revealed that she was originally cast as Alexandra, and implied that Cher may have used her feminine wiles to convince one of the film’s producers to swap their roles. Obviously, both actors are world-class talents, but it’s hard to imagine Cher in the role of mousy music teacher turned frivolous vixen given the steady, unflappable power and presence she brings to her performance as Alexandra.

Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon and Cher (Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

But, if I’m honest, there’s a lot of metatextual work I’m doing when I watch Cher in The Witches of Eastwick. I’m bringing a lot of the kinship I feel with Updike’s version of Alexandra to the film. As is so often the case when men write about groups of women, Updike’s witches represent types: Suki the sex kitten, Jane the antisocial bitch, Lexa the nurturing earth mother. But of the three, Lexa is the most fully drawn. Though the novel switches perspectives, she is the character in whose head we spend the most time. She struggles with depression and insecurity and body image, and it’s from her perspective that we get some of the book’s most resonant insight. Suddenly aware of the inexorability of her depression, she has the sensation that “her life had been built on sand and she knew that everything she saw tonight was going to strike her as sad.”

In another passage, Updike writes of Lexa, as she approaches Daryl Van Horne’s mansion: “Her heart lifted into its holiday flutter, always, coming here, night or day, she expected to meet the momentous someone who was, she realized, herself, herself unadorned and untrammelled, forgiven and nude, erect and perfect in weight and open to any courteous offer: the beautiful stranger, her secret self.”

Decades later, in Widows, she remembers those gatherings with Suki and Jane and Daryl: “Every night was a party night whose opportunities might crack open the jammed combination-lock of her life.” I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered anything that distilled so perfectly what it felt like to be a gay boy in my late 20s and early 30s, going out to bars and parties every night in search of who knew what.

All of this is what I’m thinking of when I think of Cher in The Witches of Eastwick. (And then of course, there’s her fantastic dressing down of Daryl in the film!) At 75, she is more or less the same age as her character is in The Widows of Eastwick. If she’s not feeling too raw about Sarandon’s comments, maybe it’s time to get the coven back together for a sequel.

Cher speaks her mind

(CBS News) In 1965 "I Got You, Babe" was a huge hit for Sonny and Cher. With a new album just coming out, Cher is carrying on a recording career nearly 50 years long. Anthony Mason has the profile of a legend:

When Cher appeared on her first television special in 1975 -- the singer's solo TV debut after her break with Sonny -- she was joined by her guest stars Elton John and Bette Midler in a skit about a retirement home for entertainers.

"It's very funny," said Mason.

"Yes," Cher agreed. "And not very far from the truth.

"People are so shocked that I say I don't like getting older, because I think you're supposed to say, 'Oh, I'm better than ever, and it's great, and blah, blah, blah. Unh-uh. Not happening for me."

She's spent nearly half a century in show business, breaking through with Sonny in the '60s, going solo in the '70s, winning an Oscar in the '80s, becoming a dance queen in the '90s.

"Icon" doesn't even begin to cover the woman one critic called the "Sherman Tank of divas . . . armored and unstoppable."

And if you were wondering whether, at 67, she's still the same old irreverent Cher . . . she is.

When asked by Mason if she should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cher replied with a laugh, "You know, f*** them."

"Those are my feelings," she added. "I don't need to be in a Hall to rock. So, you know, whatever."

The latest album by Cher, "Closer to the Truth." Warner Brothers Records

She sold more than 100 million records worldwide, and this week Cher will release her first studio album in more than a decade, "Closer to the Truth."

The singer remains her own toughest critic.

"My sense is that you've always kind of underestimated your own voice," Mason said.

"I'm not a huge Cher fan," she replied.

But she wanted to be a star almost from the moment she first went to the movies. She was four when her parents brought her to what was then called Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles.

"It was breathtaking," Cher said, "And there were statues everywhere. It was just like going to heaven."

She said that when she saw "Dumbo" and "Cinderella" there, "I thought, this what I'm doing, this is what I was meant to do."

"Is that where the idea where you were going to be a star was hatched?" Mason asked.

The theatre, newly restored and now named the TCL Chinese Theatre, also houses a costume collection. It was there that Mason met up with Cher's mother, 87-year-old Georgia Holt.

"You guys look amazing, I don't know what you're doing . " said Mason.

"Witchcraft," Cher replied.

As a birthday present this year, Cher made a documentary for her mom about their lives. Holt, an actress who married eight times, said she always told her two daughters "to be special, to be somebody. My father used to say it to me when I was little, and I said it to the kids."

But, added Holt, "I didn't know she was going to grow up to be this big. I had no idea!"

To view a trailer for "Dear Mom, Love Cher," click on the video player below.

"You two went through some rough spots though, didn't you?" asked Mason.

"Yeah! We're tough women," said Cher.

Holt interjected, "She used to drive my car down Sunset Boulevard . . ."

"Oh God, mom, are we going to go through this?"

"But I was cool on the big things."

"Yes, mom, you were great," said Cher, "and there were a few big things."

Like? Moving out when she was 16, and later moving in with Sonny Bono, who was 11 years older.

But it was on "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour" in the 1970s that the iconic Cher was born.

"Sonny was the nice guy, I was the bitch that sang well and looked great in clothes," was how Cher described their act. "There were people who just tuned in, women, to see what I was wearing. Then it started to be a big deal for me because it was a big deal for people. And so it gets interwoven in you."

There would be no Madonna or Lady Gaga or Katy Perry without Cher.

"In a lot of ways," Mason said, "you paved the way for these people."

"Yeah. That's true, absolutely," Cher said.

At the MTV Video Music Awards in 2010, it was Cher who gave the award to Gaga, who wore a dress made of meat that night:

"I was looking at that dress and I thought, 'My God, this dress is made so beautifully,' " Cher recalled.

"Is that something you would have ever worn?" Mason asked.

"I don't think so. My taste doesn't go there."

WEB EXTRA: To watch Cher discuss fashion, Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus on the MTV Video Music Awards, click on the video player below.

"Did you watch this year's MTV Video Music Awards by any chance?"

"No; I saw what you're trying to get me to talk about," Cher responded.

"You're a person who was willing to do some outrageous things. What did you think of [Miley Cyrus' act]?"

"I didn't like it," Cher said. "If she'd come out naked, I would have -- if it was beautifully done I would have said, 'You go, girl.' I don't care about that. I don't like to see things done badly."

"Outfit, terrible. Dancing, terrible. Singing, average. Performance, terrible."

"You've obviously tried to be provocative sometimes in your career?" Mason suggested.

"Yeah, but I always just do what I want," Cher said. "But look: What was the bad thing, you tell me? What was the part that was hard to take?"

"It was never hard to take for me," Mason replied.

"I never had anything on that you couldn't see on the beach," Cher said.

Maybe not the outfit she wore to the Oscars in 1986? Cher had been snubbed for a nomination for "Mask" that year, and she was determined to make a statement:

"I was in that gigantic big mohawk and, you know, the black Indian thing. But if you saw it, it was beautiful, you know?" Cher said. "I was going out with Josh Donen at the time, and Josh was totally freaked out when I walked out of the bathroom in this."

"You mentioned Josh Donen; he said at one point, 'I think the reason she wears those gowns is to protect who she is, to distract people,' " Mason said.

"I don't know. Joshy said that? That's very smart."

"Nah," Cher replied. " 'Cause clothes don't do anything. Clothes are nothing. Clothes are pretty. Clothes are . . . nothing."

She won an Oscar in 1988 For "Moonstruck." But the only starring role she's had in the past decade was in the 2010 film, "Burlesque." And Cher says her looks haven't helped her:

"This guy said this thing and I found it really interesting: he said, 'What do you do with Cher? She's too old to be young, and she's too young to be old.' I can't go the other way, so I'll have to wait 'til I'm old enough to be old."

Would she make more movies if she got offers? "Yeah," she said.

In our two-hour conversation in her sprawling Malibu home overlooking the Pacific, only one subject was off-limits with Cher:

"How's you love life?" Mason asked.

"None of your business," she replied. "That's how it is."

But she was open about her son Chaz's highly-publicized sex change.

She said, "I was so afraid of losing someone."

"Yes. But Chaz is the same person. I was just thinking, 'Well, where's that child going to go? What's going to happen? You know, how was this going to work?' And in the transition part it's difficult."

"You said you had a little trouble with the pronoun in the beginning," Mason said.

"Oh, we still do. All the time. It's ridiculous. But no, he's definitely a man."

So what's next for the legend who has already left her prints enshrined in cement at the Chinese Theatre? She was approached recently about singing at the Winter Olympics in Russia; she turned it down.

"You just can't, you can't cross that line," she said.

"The gay line," Cher replied. "You just can't."

Russia just passed strict anti-gay laws. Cher said, "My gay following has kept me, in the old days, alive, you know? When no one else came to see me. I've had really bad times."

"They've always been there?"

"But she will go back out on the road next year, when she'll turn 68.

"If I don't try now and I wait, I won't be able to. I won't be able to tour after this."

"You've had so many chapters in your life," said Mason.

"I know," said Cher. " 'Isn't she over?' 'Isn't it time to close the book on her?' "

Not Cher. Not yet.

WEB EXTRA: Read an extended transcript of Cher's interview with Anthony Mason. in which she talks in depth about Sonny, designer Bob Mackie, honesty, and what Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep thought of her acting.

For more info:

• cher.com (Official website)
• "Cher: Closer to the Truth" - Album stream on Amazon
• "Dear Mom, Love Cher" (The Ebersole Hughes Company) - Available on DVD, or download via iTunes and Amazon

First published on September 22, 2013 / 6:56 PM EDT

© 2013 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

How Cher Stood Up to a Hollywood Director Calling Her “Too Old”

“Alright, sit down, because I’m going to tell you a fabulous story,” Cher told an audience in Atlantic City this weekend. And boy, did she deliver.

On Friday, a month after delighting moviegoers with her Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again cameo, Cher entertained an entirely different audience during a sold-out concert at Atlantic City’s Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa. While other performers usually fill the moments between songs with forgettable patter, Cher went off-script, offering concertgoers a juicy anecdote involving her former co-star Jack Nicholson.

“Alright, sit down, because I’m going to tell you a fabulous story,” Cher teased after performing “Woman’s World,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

About three decades ago, Cher explained, she was about to turn 40 and was “dreading” the milestone. But she celebrated the birthday with friends, a “fantastic” party, and a flirtation with Rob Camilletti—a 22-year-old baker who would later become Cher’s boyfriend. Things were suddenly looking up: “So I went to sleep, dreaming these fabulous thoughts of being 40 and it was good,” Cher said. Referencing the Hollywood casting momentum she’d gotten because of 1983’s Silkwood, the performer continued, “And I was going to get all these movies and I was just so happy.”

The next morning, still on a birthday high, she picked up a phone call from George Miller, who was casting an adaptation of The Witches of Eastwick starring Nicholson. Cher had been in conversations for the role of Alexandra Medford. And although she already had one Oscar nomination under her belt, Miller said that he and Nicholson did not think Cher was right for the part.

“He said, ‘I just wanted to call and tell you that I don’t want you in my movie and Jack Nicholson and I think you’re too old and you’re not sexy,’” Cher recalled, joking, “Good morning, 40!”

As Cher remembers it, Miller was not done with his insults.

“He just wanted to tell me everything: ‘I hate the way you walk. I hate the way you talk. I don’t like the color of your hair. I don’t like your eyes,’” Cher recalled.

Finally, Cher had enough.

“I was like, ‘O.K., look motherf*cker . . . you didn’t find me under a rock. I was nominated for an Academy Award for Silkwood. And I got the Cannes Film Festival award for best actress for Mask, so goodbye!’”

" This association with magical roles has undoubtedly contributed to the speculation that she may have a deeper connection to witchcraft. Moreover, Cher's unconventional fashion choices and unique persona have added to the perception that she has an otherworldly presence. Her bold style, adorned by elaborate costumes and daring outfits, has often been characterized as spellbinding.

This has led some to believe that her flamboyant appearance is indicative of her involvement in witchcraft. It is important to note that these rumors are primarily based on conjecture and fascination rather than factual information. Cher has not publicly claimed to be a witch, nor has she demonstrated any explicit involvement in occult practices. Nevertheless, the persistent gossip surrounding her alleged witchcraft status showcases society's enduring fascination with the mysterious and extraordinary. In conclusion, Cher's rumored affiliation with witchcraft has captured public imagination thanks to her captivating persona, portrayal of mystical characters, and unconventional style choices. However, there is no substantial evidence to support these claims, leaving them firmly rooted in speculation and fascination. Regardless of her alleged witchcraft status, Cher's iconic career and artistic contributions continue to enamor and inspire audiences globally..

Reviews for "From Witches to Divas: Cher's Transformation Using Witchcraft"

1. John - 2/5 stars

I was really disappointed with "Is Cher a Witch". I was hoping for a well-researched exploration of Cher's life and career, but instead, I found a shallow and sensationalist piece of writing. The author seemed more interested in perpetuating rumors and gossip than in providing any substantial information. It felt like a missed opportunity to learn something new about a fascinating artist. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone looking for a serious and informative biography.

2. Sarah - 1/5 stars

I couldn't even finish reading "Is Cher a Witch". The title alone should have tipped me off to the lack of credibility and substance of this book. The author repeatedly made claims without any evidence or sources to back them up. It was essentially a collection of baseless rumors and wild speculation. I would have appreciated a more balanced and well-researched approach to exploring Cher's life. Unfortunately, this book fell far short of my expectations.

3. Mark - 2/5 stars

As a fan of Cher, I was excited to read "Is Cher a Witch". However, I ended up feeling frustrated with the lack of depth and analysis in this book. It seemed more concerned with portraying Cher as a mysterious and mystical figure than with providing any meaningful insights into her career and persona. I was hoping for a more nuanced exploration of her impact and influence on popular culture. While the book had a few interesting tidbits, it ultimately failed to deliver a satisfying reading experience for me.

4. Michelle - 1/5 stars

"Is Cher a Witch" was a complete waste of my time. The author seemed more interested in sensationalism and shock value than in providing any thoughtful analysis. It was evident from the lack of reputable sources and evidence that this book was more speculative than factual. I expected a more professional and well-researched approach to exploring Cher's life, but this book fell short on every level. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking for an insightful biography.

5. David - 2/5 stars

I was intrigued by the premise of "Is Cher a Witch", but unfortunately, the execution left much to be desired. The book lacked any substantive evidence to support its claims and instead relied on tabloid-like gossip and speculation. I was hoping for a more balanced and thoroughly researched exploration of Cher's life and career, but instead, I found myself questioning the author's credibility. Overall, I was disappointed with this book and wouldn't recommend it to anyone seeking a factual and insightful biography.

The Witchcraft Chronicles: Cher's Influence on the Modern Witching Community