Cher does not just sit down at a table. She takes over the moment. And when she shows up on Jessie Ware’s Table Manners, it feels less like a podcast and more like being invited into a private dinner with a woman who has lived ten lifetimes and remembers every detail.
Her “Diva Pasta” starts the same way her stories do. She learned it watching Sonny Bono’s Sicilian mother cook by feel, not by instruction. That same instinct shows up everywhere else in her life.
Over dinner, she casually drops moments most people would save for memoirs. She talks about insisting on casting Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck when everyone else said no. She shares how Mike Nichols told stories on set until she sobbed on a swing during Silkwood, standing across from Meryl Streep. And yes, she says she said yes to Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again for one simple reason. She wanted to work with Meryl again.
There is glamour, but there is also grit. Childhood meals built from beans, cornbread, and iced tea. Years of working nonstop. Wearing wigs after a director ruined her hair. Building a gelato truck just because she loved the best ice cream she ever tasted and thought, why not?
Cher shares ‘Diva Pasta’ and stories with Meryl Streep and Nick Cage on Jessie Ware’s Table Manners.
Hearing Cher talk so casually about those early, hungry years with Sonny makes you realize something. The confidence, the chaos, and the zero fear did not start with movie sets or Bob Mackie looks. It started when they were two outsiders getting told they were too strange for America, then taking a chance on London and flipping the whole story. It is the moment the legend is still becoming the legend. You can see the bold “hippie” look she described, and you can feel why “I Got You Babe” turned them into a cultural lightning bolt.
Sonny & Cher “I Got You Babe” on The Ed Sullivan Show
And if Cher’s “Diva Pasta” stories made you smile, here is the perfect way to see her magic in real time. During dinner, she does not just name-drop Nicolas Cage. She breaks down how she fought to get him cast in Moonstruck, how the famous line came out of her mouth in the moment, and how the slap was not pretend.