Cher on final visit to dying friend Tina Turner: 'She was like, "Let me ...
When legendary diva meets legendary diva…
That’s exactly how it was when Cher would visit her ailing friend Tina Turner at her Lake Zürich compound in Switzerland in the final years of her life.
The two all-time icons — who both found stardom in the ’60s with their then-husbands Sonny Bono and Ike Turner — shared a special bond that lasted until Turner’s death from natural causes at age 83 in May.
But Cher knew that something was different in her longtime friend on her very last visit.
“You know, I’ve known Tina for a long, long time,” Cher, 77, told The Post last month. “And I went to visit her every year.
“When I first started visiting her, we were laughing and everything like that — and we were laughing the last time I was there — but it wasn’t the same.”
In fact, Cher had the same kind of fateful feeling that she had before her own mother, Georgia Holt, died a year ago at 96 in December 2022.
“I felt kind of like with my mom,” she said. “In a way, I knew that my mom was not having a good time, and my mom was not able to be my mom … And that’s kind of the way I felt about Tina. She was like, ‘Let me outta here!’ ”
But Cher felt that there was even more of a connection between her mother and the “What’s Love Got To Do With It” singer.
“She and my mom, in a different way, they were so alike,” she said. “They were so, like, balls to the wall, kickass women.”
And Turner gave Cher something very special to remember her by on that last visit.
“She gave me a pair of shoes,” she said. “High heels.”
The “Believe” singer collaborated with another longtime friend from the ‘60s, Darlene Love, on her new album, “Christmas,” the first holiday LP of her six-decade career. The two queens of the season pair up on a new version of “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home),” which Love originally released as a Phil Spector-produced holiday bop in 1963.
“I did the background [vocals] on that song when I was 17,” said Cher. “I wouldn’t have done it without her because, in my mind, that would be so disrespectful.
“We hadn’t talked in a thousand years, but when I called her, it was like I talked to her yesterday. And it was a no-brainer.”
Being the boss lady that she is, Cher also recruited another fierce female artist — Cyndi Lauper — for “Put a Little Holiday in Your Heart.”
“Cyndi and I have been friends for a long time — we were on the road together for a long, long time,” she said.
While there is still progress to be made, Cher — who will will perform on the “Christmas in Rockefeller Center” special airing on NBC and Peacock Wednesday night — believes that women in music have come a long way since she, Lauper, Love and, of course, Turner launched their careers.
“When I was with Sonny, I didn’t have choices. And now I’m glad that women just can do what they want to do and fulfill their expression.”
