Fact Check: Cher Said Trump 'Most Unattractive Man I Have Met'?

Claim:

Singer Cher said to former U.S. President Donald Trump, “You are the most unattractive man I have ever met in my entire life. You have demonstrated every loathsome characteristic of the male personality and even discovered a few new ones. You are physically repulsive, intellectually retarded, you're morally reprehensible, vulgar, insensitive, selfish, stupid, you have no taste, a lousy sense of humor and you smell. You're not even interesting enough to make me sick.”

Rating:

Misattributed ( About this rating? )

Context:

The quoted statement is a line spoken by a fictional character Cher played in the 1987 movie “The Witches of Eastwick.” It had nothing to do with Trump. That said, Cher has used many colorful words for Trump on social media, calling him “ugly,” among other insults.

In 2024, a quote attributed to Cher about former U.S. President Donald Trump went viral on Instagram's Threads and X . Readers also sent us the quote to confirm its authenticity.

The mononymous singer and actress, who was born Cherilyn Sarkisian, purportedly said to Trump: "You are the most unattractive man I have ever met in my entire life. You have demonstrated every loathsome characteristic of the male personality and even discovered a few new ones. You are physically repulsive, intellectually retarded, you're morally reprehensible, vulgar, insensitive, selfish, stupid, you have no taste, a lousy sense of humor and you smell. You're not even interesting enough to make me sick."

Many posts had the two edited into the same image, making it appear as though Cher was saying these words directly to Trump (who we can only identify by his distinctive hairstyle):

In 2022, a Facebook video of Cher saying the words went viral. The same video appeared to show Trump responding to her with his facial expressions.

However, said video was clearly made by splicing together unrelated footage of Trump and Cher, making it look like she was speaking to him. While Cher did utter the above words, they were not meant for Trump and were spoken in a monologue when she played a character in a film. As such, we rate this claim as "Misattributed."

Cher played the role of Alexandra Medford in "The Witches of Eastwick." In the movie, Medford says the following to another character played by Jack Nicholson (via IMDb):

I think... no, I am positive... that you are the most unattractive man I have ever met in my entire life. You know, in the short time we've been together, you have demonstrated EVERY loathsome characteristic of the male personality and even discovered a few new ones. You are physically repulsive, intellectually retarded, you're morally reprehensible, vulgar, insensitive, selfish, stupid, you have no taste, a lousy sense of humor and you smell. You're not even interesting enough to make me sick.

A film clip of her character saying the above words can be found on YouTube. This same clip was manipulated to create the misleading Facebook video:

Might Cher have repurposed these famous lines and applied them to Trump? We could find no evidence of her doing so, though she has been famously critical of him. On her verified X (formerly Twitter) account, she has called Trump " ugly " and " worthless ," among other things.

Sources:

"Jack Nicholson & Cher - The Witches Of Eastwick 1987 HD." www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmNOn6feiYg . Accessed 6 March 2024.

Tannenbaum, Rob. "Cher Sounds Off on Trump's 'Cheating' & Why She's 'Not a Fan' of Her Six Decades of Hits." Billboard, 18 May 2017, https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/cher-songs-age-twitter-trump-2017-7800189/ . Accessed 6 March 2024.

"The Witches of Eastwick (1987)." IMDb. www.imdb.com, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094332/characters/nm0000333 . Accessed 6 March 2024.