Cher stole a horse and hopped a freight train when she was 9, but that’s not what upset her mother most

Cher, the lifelong diva that she is, has recalled the time she stole a horse and hopped on a freight train to a faraway destination, at the tender age of just nine years old.

The musician spoke of the experience during a recent interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, as part of a broader discussion on how she became so fearless. While Cher admitted that she didn’t “know exactly where I got my fearlessness from,” she did trace some of those traits back to her youth, which in this case means mounting a nearby horse and jumping on a train to nowhere. The story goes that before even reaching one decade on earth, mini Cher “borrowed” — she insisted she “didn’t steal it” — a horse whose owner she didn’t know, and rode the horse to the “end of the fences.”

Since she didn’t use the horse for very long, I’m inclined to believe Cher really did just borrow the horse, plus who is going to complain about owning a horse that was once ridden by a music icon? In any case, Cher’s affinity for horsin’ around is only half the story, since the singer had only just begun her (mis)adventure after dismounting the animal. “Then I saw a freight train, and I thought, ‘That’s a good idea,'” Cher recalled, adding that she was with a friend at the time of her impromptu boarding of the train. 

The “Believe” singer said she and her friend “didn’t really know” what was in store for them when getting on the train, and said retrospectively that “of course, we could’ve gotten killed.” Where was the destination of this train to nowhere, you ask? “We went to Santa Ana, I think,” Cher revealed, “and then when it got dark my friend got scared.” I’m one of Cher’s biggest supporters, and even I’m with her friend in sharing that same fear, even vicariously. A little internet sleuthing reveals that Cher grew up in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, which is about a two-hour commute to Santa Ana. 

That’s more than enough time for a pre-fame Cher to begin creating her legacy, while her friend sits nervously wondering where the heck they’re going. One person who was surprisingly unbothered, however, by the pair’s behavior was Cher’s mom, the late Georgia Holt, whom Cher called when she realized their journey was over. “My mom thought it was cool,” Cher said, proving that cool factor runs in the family. Like any mom, however, Holt’s issue was less to do with her daughter’s spontaneous disappearance and more to do with whether she had eaten. 

“The only thing she was upset about was that I threw my lunch pail away,” Cher said. It’s the same gripe my mom had when I’d surreptitiously avoid the baby carrots in my lunchbox, so I totally see where Holt is coming from. Stories like these will feature in Cher’s new memoir, which she was on The Tonight Show to promote. 

Titled Cher: The Memoir: Part One, memoir was, according to the Grammy winner, a “b***h” to write. “It’s hard because when you’re telling your life there’s parts you’d like to guard,” she said, “and then I just thought, ‘I have to tell everything.'” Here’s hoping Cher’s other tales from her childhood are less fear-inducing, but then again, it’s Cher, so she can do whatever she wants.