Cher Reveals the "Fiasco" That Ensued When She Performed for Princess Margaret in 1965: "I Was Mortified"
"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."
Queen Elizabeth's younger sister, Princess Margaret, was known for her love of the arts and her taste for the extravagant (who can forget the photo of her wearing a tiara in the bathtub?). But another iconic figure from the 1960s recently revealed an embarrassing run-in with the royal in her new memoir—and I can't get enough of this story.
In her new book Cher: The Memoir, which was released on Nov. 19, Cher revealed the story behind her private concert with Princess Margaret, a tale that ended up being a complete "fiasco."
The princess and her husband, Lord Snowdon, were visiting Los Angeles in 1965 when she reached out to ask Cher and her then-husband, Sonny Bono, for a special favor. "Having read all about us in the English press, the princess invited us to perform at the Hollywood Palladium," the pop legend wrote in an excerpt from her memoir via People.
However, instead of being thrilled to perform for royalty, Cher—who was only 19 at the time—was suspicious. "This came as a surprise, because the old guard either had no idea who we were or thought we were freaks. It boggled the imagination how much that wasn’t our audience," she wrote. "The best that could happen is we’d live through it.”
While the husband/wife duo wanted to turn down the invitation, Cher wrote she “couldn’t say no to Princess Margaret," so they ultimately went through with the performance.
Princess Margaret and her husband were visiting the United States in 1965 when they invited Sonny and Cher to perform.
Princess Margaret, pictured in 1965, apparently didn't enjoy the duo's performance.
Unfortunately, the event played out even worse than Cher had expected. Frank Sinatra, who was scheduled to announce Sonny & Cher, canceled at the last minute, and they had to perform in the middle of the dance floor due to a lack of stage setup.
"The acoustics were so bad that, coupled with sound problems, we performed terribly," she wrote. Speaking of sound issues, Princess Margaret was sick with laryngitis at the time, and "asked for the sound to be turned down because she had a headache," per Cher.
The "Believe" singer added "the audience must have agreed" about the poor sound quality, "because very few people applauded."
"I think we were wearing white outfits, but we should have been wearing camouflage," Cher penned. "The whole event was a fiasco…I was mortified. 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."
However, all's well that ends well. In 2023, Cher performed in front of Prince William and Kate Middleton (as well as Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden) at the Royal Variety Performance, singing her new holiday tune, "DJ Play a Christmas Song"—and they definitely didn't ask for the sound to be turned down.
