The One Big Problem Cher Had With Michael Jackson
Cher and Michael Jackson had a lot in common. Both were big music stars in the 1960s, '70s, '80s, and even beyond, both finding fame at a young age. Cher was just 19 years old when she recorded the 1965 hit " I Got You Babe" with then-husband Sonny Bono. And by the end of that same decade, child singer Jackson shot to fame with his brothers thanks to the Jackson 5 smash, "I Want You Back." The song topped the charts on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1970, per Classic Motown.
Five years later, the two superstar singers performed together on Cher's CBS variety show "The Cher Show." A YouTube video of Cher's 1975 performance with Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 showed them singing a medley of "I Want You Back," "I'll Be There," "Never Can Say Goodbye," "The Love You Save," and "Dancing Machine," all while Cher tried to keep up with the future moonwalker's dance moves.
Cher seemed enamored by the talented young singer who was 12 years her junior, but as they grew older, she had a big issue with Jackson.
Cher revealed she did not like how Michael Jackson parented his son
Cher has two children from two marriages: Chaz, her son with Sonny Bono, and Elijah Blue Allman, her son from her marriage to singer Gregg Allman (via Hollywood Life). In the late 1990s, Michael Jackson welcomed kids Prince and Paris with ex-wife Debbie Rowe. The singer was granted full custody of his children following his divorce from Rowe in 1999, according to People. In 2002, he became father to a third child, Prince Michael Jackson II, via surrogate. It was Jackson's parenting of the third child, nicknamed "Blanket" and now legally named Bigi, that Cher took issue with.
In a 2003 interview with TV Guide (per Entertainment Weekly), Cher revealed that she was no longer a fan of Jackson and that it was due to the bizarre way in which he parented his children. Jackson famously hid his young kids behind masks and other face coverings when they were out in public, but Cher witnessed how baby Blanket was hidden while she was taping a TV special with Jackson — and she thought it was really strange.
"He had this child rolled up in a blanket, and I was thinking, 'What kind of life is this?"' Cher said. "I cannot imagine putting my children through what he put his children through." The "Believe" singer went so far as to call Jackson "nuts" and added, "He shouldn't have these children."'
Cher spoke about the Blanket story again after Michael Jackson's death
Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009, at age 50 from an overdose of propofol, per CNN. On the night of his sudden and shocking death, Cher phoned into "Larry King Live" to share memories she had of the late King of Pop. While speaking with King, Cher described the child star whom she first met nearly 40 years prior as an "adorable" and "beautiful" young man. "This child was an extraordinary child," Cher told King of Jackson (via YouTube). But she admitted that she saw a lot less of Jackson as he grew older. "I didn't see him that much, and when I did see him his behavior was very strange to me," she said.
Cher then recounted the story of seeing Jackson's son being rolled up into a blanket while she rehearsed with him for a Dick Clark special a few years earlier. "They had the baby all wrapped up — I don't know if it was a baby or toddler, I don't really know how old the child was — carrying it in this kind of blanket from the trailer outside," she said.
The incident stood out to Cher. "I just kept thinking, why don't they just leave the poor child in the trailer with whoever's watching him instead of carting him back and forth?" she said in the Larry King interview.