Cher

In August 1965, Cher had a number one in the United States with "I Got You Babe".

The next one reached her in March 1999, with "Believe".

Thirty-three years and seven months between one and the other. It is the longest gap anyone has managed in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, and it does not look like breaking any time soon.

What that number means

It means she had time to go out of fashion completely. Twice, at least.

This is not the story of someone who stayed on top for six decades. It is the story of someone who was written off several times and came back when nobody was looking at her any more.

In 1999, when "Believe" was number one, she was fifty-two. She became the oldest woman to top that chart.

And she did not write it. "Believe" came out of a team of British songwriters and two producers who were trying things out with a pitch processor. That metallic effect on the voice, later used across half the planet, was born there: not as an arrangement to cover anything up, but as a deliberate aesthetic decision. For a while they called it, literally, the Cher effect.

That the song was not hers takes nothing away. What she did was recognise it and lay on top of it the one voice that could carry that effect without disappearing underneath it.

The wedding that never happened

With Sonny Bono there is a small correction that gets repeated everywhere.

The 1964 ceremony, in a Tijuana hotel, had no legal validity. They made it up themselves, with rings bought the same day, because he was much older and the situation was not presentable.

They married for real in 1969, four years after becoming famous as a married couple.

They separated in 1975. Sonny Bono went into politics, became a congressman and died in a skiing accident in 1998. Cher spoke at his funeral.

The eighties, not the nineties

Cher's rock phase —the hair, the leather jackets, "If I Could Turn Back Time" filmed aboard a battleship— was from the end of the eighties, not the nineties. The draft of this very text contradicted itself two paragraphs later.

It is in that same decade that she does what nobody expected: she starts acting seriously and wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for "Moonstruck", at the 1988 ceremony.

From television variety singer to award-winning actress. That transition is harder than any change of sound, and almost nobody has made it in that direction.

Where she is now

Here something needs updating, because the heroic portrait of the woman who still fills stadiums no longer applies.

Cher turned eighty on 20 May 2026. She no longer tours. That year she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2024 she had entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, something that took a good deal longer than was reasonable.

Saying so does not diminish her. A career running from 1965 to the 2020s does not need to be told in the present continuous to be impressive.

What to remember

Cher is proof that surviving is not the same as not falling: it is falling and coming back, several times, thirty years apart.

Put on "I Got You Babe", "If I Could Turn Back Time" and "Believe" in that order and you will hear three different eras of pop with the same low voice running through them, which is the one thing that never changed.

And keep in mind the fact that sums it all up: thirty-three years passed between her first number one and the next. A whole career by somebody else fits inside that gap.

Remember her like this: not as the woman who was always on top, but as the one who came back after she had been written off, and came back higher.

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Sources

Cher, real name Cherilyn Sarkisian, born in El Centro, California, on 20 May 1946. American singer and actress. She reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1965 with "I Got You Babe", as a member of the duo Sonny & Cher, and topped the chart again in March 1999 with "Believe": thirty-three years and seven months between the two, the longest gap between two number ones recorded on that chart. At 52 she became the oldest woman to reach number one on the Hot 100. "Believe" was not written by her, but by a team of British songwriters, and was produced by Mark Taylor and Brian Rawling; the distinctive treatment of the voice by means of a pitch processor was used as a deliberate aesthetic device and came to be known as the "Cher effect". Her marriage ceremony with Sonny Bono, held in Tijuana in 1964, had no legal validity; the couple married legally in 1969 and separated in 1975. Sonny Bono later developed a political career as a congressman and died in a skiing accident in 1998. Her rock phase, with "If I Could Turn Back Time" (1989), belongs to the end of the eighties and not to the nineties. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for "Moonstruck" at the ceremony held in 1988. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2024, turned 80 on 20 May 2026 and received that year the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award; she no longer tours. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of her work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Billboard, Wikipedia, Britannica, Rolling Stone and other coverage.