There’s still some confusion over what Cher told a Canadian magazine earlier this month, but the Sochi Olympic Organizing Committee tried to clear it up Wednesday.
The singer, whose father was from the former Soviet republic of Armenia, was asked what she thought about “what’s going on in Russia right now.”
Her answer:
“I can’t name names, but my friend called who is a big oligarch over there, and asked me if I’d like to be an ambassador for the Olympics and open the show,” Cher told Maclean’s in a q-and-a published Sept. 8. “I immediately said no. I want to know why all of this gay hate just exploded over there. He said the Russian people don’t feel the way the government does.”
Cher never said Sochi organizers reached out to her, and she never said anything about performing at the Olympics. “Open the show” is vague.
On Tuesday, Reuters published a video interview with Cher with an accompanying article.
The article’s lede said, “Cher said it was a ‘no-brainer’ to turn down a chance to perform at next year’s Winter Olympics,” though Cher did not say in the video or in the article specifically she was offered anything by Sochi organizers.
“Probably no one will ever ask me to come to the Olympics and either be a, you know, goodwill ambassador,” she said in the video. “There were a couple of different things offered.”
What she was offered, and by whom, is still unknown. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Sochi Organizing Committee has not talked to Cher about a role in “the ceremonies,” which could mean the opening and/or closing ceremony or one of the nightly medal ceremonies where musical acts perform.
“There have never been any negotiations with Cher about her possible participation in the ceremonies,” the committee said in a statement.
