June 18, 2020
Cher v. Madonna :: Old Video Reignites Feud
READ TIME: 2 MIN.
If Ryan Murphy ever revives his FX series "Feud," he should consider Cher v. Madonna as a possible subject.
This comes to mind as the BBC Archive turned back time and posted to Twitter a video from 1991 that featured Cher speaking with the late Irish talk show host Sir Terry Wogan about the Material Girl.
And it wasn't pretty. In the clip, she says Madonna is "not beautiful" and "not unbelievably talented,"
When Wogan asks if she goes "jogging like Madonna," Cher sarcastically answers, "Do you mean like my best friend Madonna?"
Wogan then says he asked that as "a subtle way to drag her in, you understand."
"How about dragging her in by her hair!" responded Cher.
But she tempered her criticism by saying the feud was "blown out of proportion." And they she admired Madonna's work ethic.
"Someone said to me, 'What do you think about her?' I said, 'Well, I think she's unbelievably creative.'
"I'm amazed at the amount, in my day, I was pretty good at doing the same thing she's doing but she does it so much better."
But, she added: "'She's unbelievably creative because she's not unbelievably talented, she's not beautiful but she's rude."
Her comments were echoed a quarter century later with Ellen DeGeneres on her talk show.
Saying that Madonna is not a performer she would collaborate with, she added:
"There are lots of things that I respect about her. I think that she knows how to work the business like nobody I've ever seen before. There's something about her that I don't like. She's... mean. I don't like that."
In another 1991 interview (seen on the YouTube clip below), Cher explained further: "I remember having her (Madonna) over to my house a couple of times, because [Sean Penn] and I were friends, and she just was so rude to everybody. She acts like a spoiled brat all the time.
"And it seems to me when you reach the kind of acclaim that she's reached – and you can do whatever you want to do – you should be a little bit more magnanimous, and little bit less of a c**t."
The Daily Mail contacted Madonna for comment but she didn't respond.
Watch this YouTube video that follows their feud:
