Cher Recalls ‘Fiasco’ Performance in Front of Princess Margaret in Her New Memoir: ‘I Was Mortified’

Mar. 15, 2025

Cher attends the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony streaming on Disney+ at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse on Oct. 19, 2024 in Cleveland, Ohio and Princess Margaret wearing a yellow evening dress, circa 1970.Photo:Arturo Holmes/Getty; Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty

Arturo Holmes/Getty; Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty

WhenPrincess Margaretasks you to perform, you don’t say no.

That wasCher’s philosophy, anyway — and the iconic entertainer tells the story of the “fiasco” performance at the Hollywood Palladium in her new bookCher: The Memoir, out Nov. 19.

Princess Margaret, the younger sister ofQueen Elizabeth, had flown into Los Angeles for “a series of charitable events” with her husband, Lord Snowdon, Cher wrote.

“Having read all about us in the English press, the princess invited us to perform at the Hollywood Palladium,” Cher continued, alluding to herself and Sonny Bono, who performed as the duo Sonny & Cher (and were also then husband and wife).

American singer Cher of the pop duo Sonny & Cher in action during a performance of the single ‘Little Man’ on the set of the Associated Rediffusion Television pop music television show Ready Steady Go! at Wembley Television Studios in London on August 26, 1966.Ivan Keeman/Redferns/Getty

Ivan Keeman/Redferns/Getty

“This came as a surprise, because the old guard either had no idea who we were or thought we were freaks,” she wrote. “It boggled the imagination how much that wasn’t our audience. The best that could happen is we’d live through it.”

Cher wrote that she and Sonny didn’t want to accept the offer to perform, “but we couldn’t say no to Princess Margaret.”

Bettmann/Getty

“I think we were wearing white outfits, but we should have been wearing camouflage,” she added. “The whole event was a fiasco.”

Frank Sinatra — who was supposed to introduce Sonny & Cher — dropped out at the last minute, so Bob Hope introduced them instead, the performer recalled. The event started late, there was no stage (“so we stood on the dance floor,” she remembered) and, to top it all off, Princess Margaret had laryngitis.

Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon pictured wearing a tiara and ornate necklace at an official royal engagement in 1966.

“The acoustics were so bad that, coupled with sound problems, we performed terribly,” Cher wrote, adding that Peter Bogdanovich — who was then a critic for theSaturday Evening Post— wrote that the two “howled like a pair of coyotes.”

“The audience must have agreed, because very few people applauded, and halfway through our set Princess Margaret asked for the sound to be turned down because she had a headache,” she wrote. “The engineer then accidentally cut the mic and interfered with what we could hear, which threw Sonny completely.”

Cover of ‘Cher: The Memoir Part One’.

This angered Sonny, and the two couldn’t wait for their performance to end.

“I was mortified,” Cher wrote, adding, “It was like a bad dream that we couldn’t get out of; we just had to stand there and wait for it to be over.”

Catherine, Princess of Wales and Prince William, Prince of Wales arrive to attend the Royal Variety Performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Nov. 30, 2023.DANIEL LEAL/AFP via Getty

DANIEL LEAL/AFP via Getty

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Though the Princess Margaret performance proved disastrous, it wouldn’t be the last time Cher performed before royalty. Just last year,Prince WilliamandKate MiddletonjoinedCrown Princess Victoriaof Sweden and her husband Prince Daniel to see Cher hit the stage for the Royal Variety Performance at Royal Albert Hall on Nov. 30.

source: people.com