‘Mom is gone’: Cher appears to confirm that her mother Georgia Holt has passed away at 96… just months after pneumonia hospitalization and recurring health issues
Cher has seemingly announced that her mother, Georgia Holt, has passed away at the age of 96.
The legendary singer, 76, published a brief tweet that prompted many of her 4million Twitter followers to send her condolences
‘Mom is gone,’ penned Cher, followed by a frowning emoji.
RIP: Cher has seemingly announced that her mother, Georgia Holt, has passed away at the age of 96; the pair seen in 2010
Back in early September, Cher revealed in a Twitter post that Georgia had been hospitalized with pneumonia and had been suffering from recurring health issues.
‘Sorry I’ve Been Mia. Mom’s Been Sick Off & On. She Just Got Out Of Hosp. She Had Pneumonia,’ wrote the star, who followed up with: ‘She’s Getting Better’
The following day, Cher returned to the platform to thank her fans for their prayers and assure them that her mother being back home is what’s best for her.
‘Mom is gone,’ penned Cher, followed by a frowning emoji
‘Mom is gone,’ penned Cher, followed by a frowning emoji. Fans quickly flooded the icon’s comment section with condolences
Back in early September, Cher revealed in a Twitter post that her mother had been hospitalized with pneumonia and had been suffering from recurring health issues
The following day, Cher returned to the platform to thank her fans for their prayers and assure them that her mother being back home is what’s best for her
Cher paid tribute to her mother back in 2013 with a documentary aired on Lifetime called Dear Mom, Love Cher.
The film, which Cher executive-produced, detailed Holt’s childhood in Arkansas, her six marriages, and her singing and acting career in Los Angeles as she struggled to support her daughter.
It told how, while pregnant with Cher, Georgia almost had an abortion because of pressure from her own mother.
Having recently left her husband, aged just 19, Georgia sought advice from her mother – who told her to get rid of the child.
‘I never remember not singing’: Cher has recalled that as a child: ‘I remember singing and talking about the same time,’ adding: ‘My mom and I sang together all the time’
Georgia’s mother, who was only 13 when she gave birth herself, advised Georgia to either have an abortion or return to her husband; she could not bring the child up as a single mother.
Ignoring the advice, Georgia went ahead with the pregnancy, and kept the child, whom she named Cherilyn Sarkisian – despite temporarily putting her in an orphanage when she was strapped for cash.
Georgia once harbored her own ambitions of being a performer, singing in saloons as a child and winning a spate of beauty contests as a teenager.
In a statement released to EW.com at the time of the documentary, Cher said: ’My mom is exactly like Rocky. She never gives up!’
Three generations: Georgia moved swiftly with the times, reacting with total sanguinity when Cher’s daughter Chastity transitioned into a man called Chaz; the trio are pictured in 1974
That year, at the age of 86, Georgia released her debut country album Honky Tonk Woman – which had been recorded more than three decades earlier in 1980.
‘It is such a thrill. I just cried and I cried and I cried,’ Georgia told the Huffington Post. ‘I cried from the special, I cried from the album coming out after all these years. My father started me singing at age six.’
Cher, who sang with Georgia on the album, once joked to her: ‘Mother, do you realize that you have the most expensive backup singer in the world?’
The pop diva recalled that as a child: ‘I remember singing and talking about the same time. I never remember not singing. My mom and I sang together all the time.’
Support system: Georgia was at Cher’s side in 2010 when the showbiz icon had her handprints placed in front of what was then Grauman’s Chinese Theatre
Georgia was a lifelong support to her daughter through her stratospheric rise to stardom – as well as her turbulent love life.
Cher’s romantic history included failed marriages to Sonny Bono – whom she shot to fame with before they fell out in a bitter divorce where she accused him of pressing her into ‘involuntary servitude’ – and Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers.
Just like her mother, Cher left home at 17 – though Cher did so in order to secretly move in with Sonny, who was 12 years her senior.
Years later Georgia recalled with a laugh that ‘I didn’t know that that’s why she left home. I thought she was living with a stewardess.’
Throwback: Cher is pictured enjoying a picnic with Georgia and another woman
When Cher and her mother went on the Tonight Show together, they confessed to Jay Leno that Georgia initially disapproved of Cher’s romance with Sonny.
Georgia was evidently put off by the age gap between the pair, as well as the fact that Sonny had been married and had a child.
Georgia herself had a tumultuous love life that included a whopping six marriages, a fact Cher attributes to the social mores of her generation.
‘She once said that in her day you couldn’t just live with someone, so she got married instead,’ Cher explained to People magazine a few years ago. ‘Otherwise she probably would have been married just once.’
Post-divorce: In 1983, when Sonny and Cher were divorced but friendly, they posed for this picture with their child and Georgia at Bono’s Restaurant in Hollywood
‘I was married a lot but I didn’t stay married very long because I didn’t seem to be able to choose somebody that was a stable man,’ Georgia herself confessed to the Huffington Post nearly a decade ago.
Georgia moved along swiftly with the times, reacting with total sanguinity when Sonny and Cher’s daughter Chastity transitioned into a man called Chaz.
‘My sister, my brother-in-law and [my son] Elijah said to her: “Georgia, we just wanted to tell you that Chaz is becoming a man,”‘ Cher recalled. ‘And Mom said: “That’s interesting, sweetheart.” We all flipped out. We were laughing so hard, we had tears in our eyes. Her reaction was less than anyone else’s in the family.’
Georgia took an unconventional approach to motherhood, according to Cher, who revealed: ‘She never gave me and my sister [actress Georganne LaPiere Bartylak] advice because, truthfully, she knew we’d never take it.’
Wow: When Cher and her mother went on the Tonight Show together, they confessed to Jay Leno that Georgia initially disapproved of Cher’s romance with Sonny
Cher dished: ‘Instead, we learned about life by listening to her talk about the things she did wrong and the things she did right.’
Five years ago Cher hit the headlines for withdrawing from a Lifetime movie about the Flint water crisis over what she described as a ‘serious family issue.’
‘Cher’s worried about her mother’s health. She’s in her 90’s now and does not want to be far from her,’ an insider told Entertainment Tonight at the time. ‘Her mother is not deathly ill, but is somewhat fragile.’
After racking up six failed marriages by the age of 50, Georgia finally found lasting love in the 1976 with an antique dealer called Craig Spencer.
As seen in the 1970s: After racking up six failed marriages by the age of 50, Georgia finally found lasting love in the 1976 with an antique dealer called Craig Spencer
Georgia and Craig set tongues wagging when they first became an item on account of the fact that she was 21 years his senior.
When the couple appeared on a Baltimore talk-show co-hosted by an up-and-coming Oprah Winfrey, Georgia admitted she initially treated Craig ‘like a son.’
‘I would never have gone out with him,’ she said: ‘because I wouldn’t go out with anybody three years younger than me, let alone 21.’
Craig however was sweet on her, and he eventually prevailed on her to give him a chance, resulting in a romance that lasted nearly half a century until her death.
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