Cher doesn’t like to speak about her father. She met him at the age of 11 because the father had abandoned the family when she was a child. Her father has worked on a farm and has driven trucks in the US. In her interviews Cher has mentioned that her dad was an alcoholic and a gambler. When he heard the news about Cher’s mother he said, “Perhaps I should be sad, but it is very hard to be sorry for a person who you almost didn’t know.” Everyone knows that Cher’s mom was a Cherokee and that she dumped John Sargsyan when he lost a great amount of money at a casino.
No one knows where John Sargsyan was born or where he spent his youth. He went to the US after World War II. Perhaps he’s from Armenia. At least that is what Varazdat Sargsyan from Yerevan thinks. “When Cher visited Yerevan, she said that she is looking for her relatives. Later I saw in some Russian show that Cher was showing her dad’s photo and was asking her relatives to call back,” he says. He cannot remember the exact name of the TV channel and the show but clearly remembers the photograph. Varazdat Sargsyan has recognized his dad in the picture Cher showed him and tried to let her know about that.
“I don’t have either the address or the phone number, but I have sent a letter to the Russian “Zhdi Menya” TV program,” says V. Sargsyan, who thinks that he is Cher’s older brother. According to V. Sargsyan, before moving to the US, he lived in Sukhoi Fantan village of the Abovyan region. He had children and a family and went to war in the 40s, got lost and couldn’t find his way back. He is sure that John Sargsyan is his father, Taghianos Sargsyan. Although his family had a “death certificate’”, V. Sargsyan has done his own investigation. He found out that his dad was in Kerch. Later he moved to Europe and afterwards to the U.S. where he changed his name to John. “I want to meet my sister, Cher; I want to ask her about my Dad. I don’t need anything from her. I want to meet her, hug her, talk with her. The blood runs through our same veins and after all, we are blood related,” says V. Sargsyan, who works in a water sewage.
Taghianos Sargsyan, sister, Varazdat Sargsyan
He is sure that Cher became a good signer thanks to her dad’s genes. “Our dad was a lyre player that is why Cher sings so well,” he says. Besides this, V. Sargsyan is not Cher’s only “brother”. In 2004 when Cher went to Moscow on a tour, an old man approached her at the airport and showed her a picture of a man in a military uniform. He said that he is her cousin, and that their fathers are blood brothers. This man was Manvel Sargsyan who later gave interviews to Russian-Armenian newspapers and claimed that Cher’s father’s name was Karapet. Karapet Sargsyan is his uncle who moved to the U.S. after WW II and changed his name to John. In order to prove his blood connections with Cher M. Sargsyan was ready to give a DNA test. However, Cher ignored the news about her “brother” at the airport, got into the car and left. Neither M. Sargsyan nor V. Sargsyan had anything else but the picture with the military uniform to show and Cher doesn’t wish to know anything about her dad or believe the stories. However, the great number of Cher’s so called “brothers” is already a lot of information. The last name Sargsyan is very popular in Armenia (many people would like to have the name Guyulbenkyan or Kirkoryan). Indeed it is possible that John Sargsyan, who didn’t have anything to do with Cher’s career, also had other children or relatives. In order to find out about his genes it is necessary to search for everyone. However, we can understand why John Sargsyan’s “children” ask Cher to find out who John Sargsyan is. To be famous means to have great power.