Cher has opened up about her son’s gender identity, admitting that it “wasn’t easy” when Chaz Bono, now 51, announced he was transitioning in 2009.
The singer and Oscar-winning actress, who is considered an icon by many in the LGBTQ community, described the journey she went through as a mother, from when Bono — then known as Chastity — first came out as a lesbian.
Bono, an actor and the first transgender person to appear on “Dancing with the Stars,” is now “so unbelievably happy,” she added.
Cher, now 74, rose to fame in a musical duo alongside her then-husband — and Bono’s father — Sonny. She has long had a loyal LGBTQ fanbase and traces her affinity with the LGBTQ community back to a childhood memory, saying that “at 9 years old, I knew.”
She shared, “One day I came home and there were these two men in my living room with my mom…They were doing their hair and talking…That was my (introduction to) the gay world.”