How Pop Icon Cher Saved an Elephant

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And I want to ask you first about something that maybe not so many people know about you, and that is your conservation work. Free the Wild, you’re a co-founder.

CHER, SINGER AND ACTOR: Right. Right.

AMANPOUR: And, yes, the pictures went viral. You rescued and re-homed an elephant.

CHER: Yes.

AMANPOUR: Why? Where? What made you do that?

CHER: Well, I didn’t plan to at all. The kids on my Twitter feed started sending this thing, and it was — it was, free Kaavan. And I thought, well, OK, if I don’t answer, they’ll just stop. But they didn’t. And it was in Pakistan. And I thought, I’m just an entertainer. How am I going to go to Pakistan and free an elephant? We had to work through two administrations. And when Imran came in, everything got much easier.

AMANPOUR: That’s the current prime minister, Imran Khan.

CHER: Right.

AMANPOUR: So, how long have you been working on this?

CHER: Three years.

AMANPOUR: Wow. That is dedication.

CHER: Yes, it just — as we started doing it, I wasn’t going to give up. So, we went to Pakistan. And we saw him. He’s beautiful. And we started meeting the Pakistani people. And the people were so nice to me, and then–

AMANPOUR: Did they know you as Cher the entertainer?

CHER: I don’t know. I don’t think they did. It was a teeny little place. I mean little like that.

AMANPOUR: Yes. And then the elephant was airlifted to a refuge.

CHER: So, then he landed and we were all on the tarmac and we were excited. And then there was a five-hour drive to the sanctuary. And so, I could see him. And, in Islamabad, he just did this. That’s all he did. That’s what elephants do when they’re traumatized. They move their head and they move their body. And once he got into it, he didn’t do it. And he looked around and he was walking around. And he was looking at everything and giving himself a dirt bath and talking to the girls, because–

AMANPOUR: That’s amazing.

CHER: Yes.

AMANPOUR: You know, you’ve had a massive career, singer, actress, now conservationist and philanthropist. Did you know that “The New York Times” has named Cher as one of the top performers of 2020 for your performance in the 1987 film “Moonstruck?”

CHER: OK. Well, that’s great. I’m happy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “MOONSTRUCK”)

NICOLAS CAGE, ACTOR: I’m in love with you.

CHER: Snap out of it!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: I mean, do you relate to how they have obviously found something that they respond to in “Moonstruck”?

CHER: Well, you know, it’s a wonderful movie. And MGM hated it. They didn’t want to put it out. They said, there’s no audience for this movie. And we were all proud of it. And we thought, we don’t care if anybody sees it. We believe that we’ve done something good. And then one of the films that they had out fell apart, and so “Moonstruck” was the only thing they had, so they put it out. And all of a sudden, there was this groundswell.