Cher was on The Late Show last night (summary quotes here), and she talked extensively about Chas to David Letterman. That alone is interesting – and it does sound like Cher is really trying to be accepting and loving, but that she is still struggling. I give her points for trying, though. But the real headline came when David asked Cher to confirm or deny the list of men she had allegedly boned throughout the years. Cher admitting sleeping with… Tom Cruise, Warren Beatty, Eric Clapton and Gene Simmons! TOM CRUISE. Jesus!!!

Cher has revealed she still can’t get used to the fact that her daughter Chastity has had a sex change to become Chas – and revealed she still calls him ‘her’. Talking for the first time about the gender realignment of her only daughter, the 64-year-old star said however that her son didn’t mind. Chatting to David Letterman on his chat show last night wearing a daring see through top and leggings slashed up the sides, Cher said she and her only daughter had talked about it for years before she finally underwent the surgical procedure.

She said: ‘During the years we have talked about it and I don’t really know what made her change her mind – I still haven’t got the pre-nouns right, but she says that’s not so important – he had changed his mind, she had changed his mind and then it didn’t make very much difference. But it kept nagging and nagging and one day he said to me, I think I really have to do this.’

The double Oscar winner revealed that she didn’t always find it easy to accept that her daughter was transgender either. Cher confessed: ‘The day that we talked about it, really talked about it seriously, I said “If you have to do this you just have to do it.” I wasn’t always able to be quite as calm through the process, but that day I was so calm, and just thought, this is what has to happen.’

The singer and double Oscar winning actress said that Chas had first started to talk about being trapped in the wrong body more than a decade ago. Cher explained to Letterman: ‘She was a lesbian. She still is. But it’s not the same now. She has a beautiful girlfriend. But it’s not the same thing as being a homosexual, you feel as if you’re in the wrong body. I was saying to someone the other day, I really like being a woman, I feel so comfortable in my body, and if I woke up and I was in a man’s body, I’d think oh my god, I’ve got to get out of here. And that’s the way Chas felt, it was never comfortable. He’s very comfortable now.’

She added that such a major life change had been made even more difficult for Chas because of who his mother was.

Cher admitted: ‘A lot of people have come up to me and said Chas is very brave, because to make this decision with me as your mother, it’s difficult, because you’re in the limelight, there’s no place you’re going to hide.’

Chas, 41, her daughter with ex husband Sonny Bono, who died in a freak skiing accient in 1998, was originally named Chastity Sun Bono after the film Chastity, which was produced by her father and in which Cher made her movie debut as a bisexual woman. She underwent a surgical sex change and legally changed name and gender after a two-year process in in May this year.

David jokingly got her to confirm rumours about who she’d slept with over the years and read out a list of names of Cher’s supposed conquests. Of those he read out, she confessed to sleeping with Tom Cruise, Warren Beatty, Eric Clapton and Gene Simmons, but said it was only an ‘almost’ with Elvis Presley (‘I got nervous’) and Marlon Brando, both of whom she regretted turning down.

When David then asked her exactly how many men she’d slept with, Cher laughed: ‘We’re not talking Cleopatra numbers here. You know, the truth is, everyone was more promiscuous than me. I promise you, all my girlfriends, it was the time too. I’d been married to Sonny for so long, 11 years, so when I got out, I was excited, but I wasn’t quite with it.’

Cher also revealed that she once got mistaken for a Cher impersonator at a gay Jewish wedding.

She giggled: ‘I went to the bathroom, and I’m coming out, and this woman goes “Miss! Miss!” and she comes running after me and grabs my hand, and she was like “Can I have your card? ‘Cos you are the best that I’ve ever seen.” And I’m so dense, I’m thinking “I don’t have a card! I don’t carry cards!” Then she looks at me, and says “Oh god, I’m so sorry!” She thought I was a very good Cher impersonator.’

[From The Daily Mail]

The last part sounds like a skit out of Will & Grace. Back to Cher and Tom Cruise… I mean… I just can’t even picture it. I need so many more details. My guess is that it happened pre-Nicole Kidman… maybe even before Mimi Rodgers, wouldn’t you think? Tom must have been jailbait. Oh, this is going to keep me occupied all day.