Cher is gay

Cher is so low-key about being Cher that calling her is like calling your mom. We are speaking matter-of-factly about gay things, political things, Twitter things "I'm finished with the emojis that we have". About going to Walgreens and trying to remember why she went to Walgreens. This seems so very … normal?

Certainly, Cher is the most multi of multi-hyphenates — fiery human rights activist, Auto-Tune pioneer, a unicorn, the Phoenix — but no, not at all normal.

Cher Recalls the Her First Interaction With Gay People in New Interview

Not from down here, where we've basked in the long-reigning diva's treasure trove of film and music and bedazzled Bob Mackie costumes, and admired her ability to get down, do a five-minute plank seriouslyand somehow get back up again. That motion is the time-tested motion of Cher's enduring six-decade career.

It's where grit meets guts meets glitter. Our Oz, our Wonderland; a safe, shimmering space providing escapist refuge since the s, a span which has seen Cher Bono, her late ex-husband and Cher, anthemic rock and gay dance, inventions and reinventions — Cher's mere existence brought gay closer to those within our own community, and closer to ourselves.

But Cher's superheroine, Hollywood-royalty sheen isn't without genuine normal-person realness. Unlike "Believe," there is nothing artificially manufactured about Cher's no-nonsense, everywoman, Walgreens-shopper persona. Because even when her sequins glisten like a galaxy of stars on a lit Vegas stage, when she's floating high above you in majestic-goddess fashion, and when she's still wearing a variation of her "If I Could Turn Back Time" music video one-piece at her current age of 72, Cher does the least pop icon thing a pop icon can do: remind you she's still living in your world.

In July, she did her gay-icon due diligence by helicoptering onto the set of "Mamma Mia 2! Here We Go Again" to play the role she'd been playing in front of the world, most discernibly to generations of baby-gays and grown-up gays: maternal pillar. When I met Cher in on Halloween at a fundraiser stop for Hillary Clinton in the suburbs of Michigan, I was struck by her Cher-ness, the glitzy legend momentarily eclipsed by her warm, inviting humanness.

Armed with a cannon of glittery ABBA bops, Cher has come to our rescue once again with an ode to the Swedish disco-pop supergroup titled — what else? And next year, because she just can't help herself, she will embark on a tour appropriately titled "Here We Go Again. The night we spoke, Cher was laid-back, reflective and full of hearty chuckles as she talked about that Walgreens detour, kissing "Silkwood" co-star Meryl Streep, the wedding dress she'd wear to Trump's impeachment party, the "breadcrumbs" of her legacy, Twitter, the devil, jumping out of a window — and not only her long-standing influence on the LGBTQ community, but our influence on her.

Cher, I have a story you probably haven't thought about in some time: It'syou're at a Walgreens in Flint, Michigan, on Halloween. You were there campaigning for Hillary and some Walgreens shopper told you they loved your Cher costume. I needed to go into the Walgreens for something. Or: I had a moment to breathe … I don't know.

I went into Walgreens and I was looking for something, and then the girls who were helping me realized it was me, and then there was a cher kind of hubbub thing and all these little trick-or-treaters came in as I was leaving. So they were all outside and I piled them into the limousine and we were hanging out in there.

I mean, I was supposed to be going to gay whole bunch of fundraisers — I ended up making them, of course — and I was busy playing with the kids. Are you frequently mistaken for a Cher impersonator? Because, I mean, how often would the real Cher be at a Walgreens? And in Flint! Well, probably not often.