Cher Turns 70, Still Knows How To Turn Back Time

Cher is a septuagenarian. The music legend, born Cherilyn Sarkisian in 1946, turned 70-years-old on May 20, and it’s the latest big milestone for a superstar whose career has always been a numbers game. Cher is the only artist ever to score a #1 single on a Billboard chart in the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, 2000s, and 2010s, according to ABC News.

Cher shot to fame with “I Got You Babe” with her first husband, Sonny Bono, and within a few years, she was just as famous for her outrageous Bob Mackie outfits.

And while she still looks as young as ever, Cher has long joked about her age. In 2013, she told USA Today that it keeps getting harder to compete with young singers, but she doesn’t know what else to do with herself.

“I keep coming back because I have no place else to go,” Cher said. “What else would I do? I love to sing.”

Cher also joked that she hasn’t made a record since the days of the gramophone and now she “can’t get on the radio because they’re not playing women who are almost 100.” Still, even Cher is surprised she’s made it this far.

“Tell me who at my age is making a record and wants to be on the radio?” Cher said in 2013. “When I started out, I thought I’d be dead by now.”

Over her more than 50-year career, Cher has done it all. She has sold more than 100 million albums, and has won an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy Award, and three Golden Globes. In 1998, Cher became the oldest woman to have a No. 1 hit on Billboard‘s Hot 100 with her song Believe. Cher was 52-years-old at the time. And her 25^th studio album, 2013’s Closer to the Truth, was Cher’s highest-charting solo album of her career, proving it’s never too late to do better.

Looking back on her life, Cher said she was happiest in the 1980s, long after her high-profile relationships with Sonny Bono and Greg Allman, which produced her two children, Chaz Bono and Elijah Blue Allman.

“I had the most fabulous boyfriend (baker Rob Camilletti), the kids were young, New York was amazing, and I was making movies and records. Everything clicked. It was heaven,” Cher told USA Today.

In addition to her music career, Cher starred in a series of workout videos back in the ’80s, and she has had both hair and skin-care lines. And even though fans think she still looks as great as ever, the ever-critical Cher begs to differ.

In a 2014 interview with AARP, Cher said she has stopped looking in the mirror because she doesn’t like what she sees.

“Every once in a while I think, ‘Jesus, you’re so old! How did this happen?’ I haven’t looked in the mirror in years. The only time I was happy with the way I looked was when I was, like, 40 to 45,” Cher said.

While she may be overly critical of herself, there’s no doubt that Cher wears 70 well. And she clearly gets her good genes from her mom, Georgia Holt. Cher’s mom is 90-years-old and still looks as stunning as her famous daughter.

In honor of Cher’s 70^th birthday, fans and famous friends took to social media to wish the music icon a happy birthday.

Take a look at the video below for more on Cher’s 70th birthday.

[Photo by Dan Callister/Stringer]