Talk:Cher

Website down?

Research shows it's been down for 4 months. source: https://downornot.net/check/cher.com BodyPride (talk) 23:16, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

Cherokee?

Is Cher really of Cherokee descent? The reason I ask this is because I noticed that her children’s biographies aren’t categorized as people of Cherokee descent.

I find this odd because the biography on one of Cher’s children says stuff like this:

His book, Transition: Becoming Who I Was Always Meant to Be was published in 2012, making him the first person of Armenian descent to publish a memoir about being an openly transgender man. CycoMa2 (talk) 00:53, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

It just seems odd to me that Armenian ancestry seems to be important to the biography of Chaz Bono but Cherokee isn’t despite Cherokee ancestry being important to Bono’s mom. It’s almost like this is a pretendian or something. CycoMa2 (talk) 00:58, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Fixed the issue on both articles. I noticed that both were missing the Life magazine source and did not include info about them having Cherokee ancestry through their mother. I also added an additional source from The Cleveland Press on this article and her children's articles. Aubree Jo (talk) 17:35, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Edit: Also added the "American people of Cherokee descent" categories on her children's articles since I fixed the issue on both articles. Aubree Jo (talk) 17:42, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Cher's claim to indigenous ancestry is a highly contended topic, one that Cher has claimed and then claimed to be false. Why is this written as fact, considering the most recent information we have is that it isnt? I added a neutral, short sentence only claiming it as unclear, and this edit was reverted because, "this article is too long to be adding trivial information." Why is one sentence that is highly relevant to her ancestry considered "irrelevant"? If that is the case, then that entire paragraph about her potential ancestry should be deleted. It feels very inappropriate to claim indigenous ancestry without any legitimate source. The cited source here is a tabloid mentioning it offhand, not a real source. If it is simply that the article is too long, than I think it is appropriate to delete that entire area, possibly just leaving her father's Armenian past, as that is actually well documented. Taylor Lane (talk) 15:27, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

To be honest, this seems to be a very controversial topic. If there is an official reliable source that verifies that the documentation of her Cherokee ancestry in the past is completely false, the info about her mother's ancestry can be removed, as well as her children's articles that has info about Cher's ancestries. I originally fixed the mistakes, but if Cher recently confirmed the info to be false, there is a good chance that it is completely false. That would mean that the rumor was mistakenly implied to be true and written in generally reliable sources for many years before Cher finally confirmed this to be false. Aubree Jo (talk) 09:18, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Reversion of 2026-04-06 split: concerns about WP:SUMMARYSTYLE and WP:SIZERULE

@Hubert555: I have restored the Public image, Legacy, and portions of Artistry content that were moved to Cultural impact of Cher in Special:Diff/1347414111, per WP:BEBOLD. The spinoff article itself remains intact. My concern is not whether a cultural impact article should exist for Cher, but the structural consequences of how the split was executed on the parent article. Three concerns, in order of weight.

1. WP:SUMMARYSTYLE: the replacement summary is a selection of pre-existing paragraphs, not a fresh summary.

The "Cultural status" section left in place after the split is composed of three paragraphs copied verbatim from the original Legacy section, not a new condensed summary of the spinoff. WP:SUMMARYSTYLE expects the parent article's section to function as a summary of the child article, "quite similar" to the child's lead, implying a textual object written for that purpose. The child article Cultural impact of Cher has its own freshly written lead of around 400 words. The parent's "summary" has no fresh prose. These are not symmetric objects. Using {{excerpt}} to transclude the child's lead would have been a policy-endorsed alternative that was not taken.

2. WP:SIZERULE: Cher sits well within the normal size distribution for biographical Featured Articles of major cultural figures.

Before the split, the Cher article was 327,287 bytes of wikitext. Cher is a Featured Article, meaning its scope has already passed FA review at or near this size. A petscan query of all English Wikipedia Featured Articles sorted by size shows Cher at position 9 overall and position 6 among biography FAs. Eight FAs are currently larger than Cher was before the split, including several biographies of contemporary cultural figures:

• Lady Gaga: 393,172 bytes (oldid 1348097728) — 65,829 bytes larger than pre-split Cher
• Beyoncé: 378,906 bytes (oldid 1347806608) — 51,619 bytes larger
• Mitt Romney: 375,743 bytes
• Michael Jackson: 349,152 bytes
• Taylor Swift: 330,976 bytes (oldid 1347870321) — 3,689 bytes larger
• Cher: 327,287 bytes (pre-split)

None of the biographies above Cher in this list have been proposed for a WP:SIZERULE-motivated split, and each remains an accepted Featured Article at its current size. If WP:SIZERULE applied to Cher at 327 kB, it would apply with equal or greater force to every biographical FA above it on this list.

The editor who executed the Cher split has recently edited Lady Gaga (2026-04-05, Special:Diff/1347249158), Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, and Mariah Carey without raising size concerns on any of them. The size criterion as applied to Cher was not applied to larger peer biographies that the same editor was actively working on in the same window, which undercuts article size as the operative justification for this particular split.

3. Proportional balance of the parent article.

WP:SUMMARYSTYLE asks that sections of the parent article remain "appropriately balanced" after a split. In the Cher article, interpretive and cultural-reception content (Artistry, Public image, Legacy) dropped from roughly 31 percent of article prose to roughly 15 percent, a reduction by half in relative weight and by approximately 75 percent in absolute prose.

For a subject whose encyclopedic significance rests substantively on cultural reception, this imbalance materially changes what a reader of the main article learns. Specific substantive material removed from the parent and relocated to the low-traffic spinoff includes: Billboards designation of Cher's androgynous musical identity as predating and influencing David Bowie and Patti Smith; Ms. magazine's designation of Cher as "authentic feminist hero" and "quintessential woman of the '80s"; Sophie Gilbert's framing in The Atlantic of Cher's comebacks as precedent for Madonna's reinventions and Taylor Swift's eras; Phill Marder's characterization of Cher as "the prototype of the female rock star"; the NYT/Stephanie Brush comparison of her cultural function to Jack Nicholson's; George Schlatter's statement that Cher was the first female star to carry a variety show as men had; and the viral 1996 "Mom, I am a rich man" quote. These are not ornamental quotes. They constitute the critical argument for why Cher matters as a cultural figure, and they are now read by a small fraction of parent-article readers.

Pageview context (March 1 to April 9, 2026):

• Cher: approximately 9,641 views per day
• Cultural impact of Cher post-creation: 147 views on April 6, decaying to 48 by April 9, projected steady state of roughly 20 to 40 views per day
• For comparison: Cultural impact of Madonna 131 views per day, Cultural impact of Beyoncé 179 views per day

At projected steady state, content relocated to the Cher spinoff is visible to under 0.5 percent of parent-article readership.

Proposal for path forward

I am not proposing deletion of Cultural impact of Cher. The spinoff is a legitimate article and a useful extension. What I am asking is consensus on one of the following:

• (a) The content in the parent article is restored (as I have done) and the spinoff is retained as an expanded extension containing additional material beyond the parent, matching the structural pattern visible at Madonna / Cultural impact of Madonna and Beyoncé / Cultural impact of Beyoncé, where the parent article retains substantive cultural-reception content and the spinoff provides further depth.
• (b) If consensus favors a reduced parent section, the reduction takes the form of a freshly written summary section of appropriate length (perhaps 500 to 800 words) rather than a selection of pre-existing paragraphs, ideally using {{excerpt}} or a hand-written summary that symmetrically mirrors the child article's lead.

I welcome discussion on either option and any others that preserve encyclopedic balance in the parent article. I want to be explicit that I assume good faith on the part of the editor who performed the split, and that my concerns are structural and documented, not personal. HRQ (talk) 09:13, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

(b) would seem to be the most appropriate outcome. Note that SIZERULE is based on words of readable prose rather than kB - for example, Beyoncé is only 9353 words of readable prose, compared to this article's 14,755. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:35, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

You're right that readable prose is the correct metric. The KB comparison was a rough proxy and I should have used RPS from the start. I'm happy to go with (b). My main concern was always with how the reduction was done rather than whether the article could use some trimming. I'll work on a proper summary section when I have time. HRQ (talk) 13:17, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

Cultural impact of Cher at GAN

For those following the discussion above: Cultural impact of Cher has been nominated for Good Article review. The article has been substantially reworked since the April split discussion. Editors interested in opening the review can do so at Talk:Cultural impact of Cher/GA1. HRQ (talk) 04:37, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

birth certificate?

Her birth certificate says Cheryl. Her mother named her Cherilyn. Her real name is what her mother named her. If the birth certificate does not reflect this, it can be amended. This action is completely different from changing your name. ~2026-34305-55 (talk) 23:22, 9 June 2026 (UTC)