Cher recalls Playboy Mansion visit with drunk, naked John Lennon
Cher had to act like John Lennon's "mother" when he drunkenly stripped naked at the Playboy Mansion.
Cher had to act like John Lennon's "mother" when he stripped naked at the Playboy Mansion.
The 'Believe' hitmaker was good friends with Hugh Hefner so agreed to the late Beatles legend and his pal Harry Nilsson's request to take them to the media mogul's infamous house for one of his casual Sunday evening get togethers - but was embarrassed by their drunken antics.
In an extract from 'Cher: The Memoir, Part One' serialised by the Daily Mail newspaper, she wrote: "Walking into an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles one Sunday evening I bumped into John Lennon and his friend Harry Nilsson and they asked if I could take them to Hugh Hefner's house for movie night. 'John's dying to see the Playboy Mansion,' Harry pleaded.
"Hef held parties all the time, many of which became notorious as drunken orgies with some of the Playmates, but his Sunday movie nights were calm and casual affairs for friends to enjoy cocktails and dinner before watching a new release.
"I didn't have anything else going on that night in 1974 so I agreed to drive them to Hef's and realised too late that they were drunker than I'd thought.
"There were about 50 people there and just as the movie was about to start, the two of them put on aristocratic English accents and started chanting, 'Hef! Hef! Hef!' except with the accents it sounded like 'Huff! Huff! Huff!'.
"Mortified, I could tell Hef was starting to get annoyed.
" 'Stop that!' I told them. 'Come with me.' It was like I became the mother and they were two 14-year-old boys."
Cher, now 78, took her pals out into the grounds before leaving them briefly to get a drink - and it didn't take the two singers long to shock her even more.
She continued: "Giggling and falling over each other, John and Harry followed me out into the grounds. Sitting them down inside the infamous Grotto – it was like a huge cave that one end of the swimming pool went into – I went to find a drink and when I came back they were standing in the middle of the Grotto naked but still in the water, thank God.
" 'This is not pretty what I'm seeing,' I said when they started to emerge from the pool. 'Guys, please do not come out.'
"I was trying not to laugh, but it was impossible not to as they threatened to wander around the mansion naked.
"It took me ages to get them back in their clothes. It was like herding drunks."
