Cher reflects on her journey to save Kaavan the elephant

In a recent interview, the singer explained that she didn’t initially believe she could help

In a recent appearance on the Just for Variety podcast, singer Cher shared details about her long-drawn effort to help rescue Kaavan, titled ‘The World’s Loneliest Elephant,’ from Islamabad Zoo. Kaavan began his new life in a Cambodian wildlife sanctuary in December, the result of years of campaigning for his relocation by the US singer.

Cher filmed a documentary with Smithsonian Channel, aptly titled Cher and the Loneliest Elephant, covering the rescue, which was facilitated by her animal welfare organisation Free the Wild. The matter was brought to the singer’s attention through Twitter. She reflected, “Very rarely do I help people on Twitter because I can’t help them all. But it was them, and they wanted it so badly.”She continued, talking about how she didn’t believe she could do much to help the animal at first. “I kept saying, ‘I’m just an entertainer. What did they expect me to do’?”

Cher then found the animal rescue group Free the Wild after reaching out to the former manager of rocker Bob Geldolf, Mark Crowne, who was known to help transport elephants back to Africa. The singer performed her hit song My Way in front of the elephant after being told by veterinarian Dr Amir Khalil that it was the animal’s favourite.

With reference to this, Cher shared, “It was terrible because Dr Amir is terrible [at singing] and I hadn’t been singing since COVID.” She recalled, “He gets me off-key, and I thought, ‘Cher, you’re either doing this for this animal or doing it to be cool.’ So I guess the cool didn’t win.”The 36-year-old elephant had spent most of his life at a zoo in Islamabad, before being moved to the Kulen Prum Tep Wildlife Sanctuary in Oddar Meanchey Province, to start a new life with some 600 other elephants. Kaavan came to Pakistan as a year-old calf in 1985, gifted by the Sri Lankan government as a diplomatic token.

During the podcast, Cher also spoke about her upcoming biopic. Talking about how she believes a newcomer would be best suited to play her in the film, the 80s icon shared, “We were talking about it yesterday and we’re just trying to think of actors. I said, ‘I don’t think we know her yet’.”