Sunday Night: Sept 22

This weekend Sunday Night features a story on an AFL legend talking about addictions and Cher, 67 and still fab.

Stoned
He’s an AFL footy legend who lived decades with a dark secret. For more than 20 years – including every day of his playing career – this Collingwood great smoked marijuana. Later he progressed to amphetamines and alcohol to cope with life. He even got stoned the day his team won the Grand Final – and his memories of his greatest day are far different from his teammates. He kept his addition secret from everyone, including his wife. Marijuana almost destroyed his family, and now that he’s clean, he’s coming clean on the dangers of cannabis. But in famously liberal California, a group of Hollywood mums are taking him on. These Californian housewives claim pot is saving their marriages and making them better parents. Cheryl turned to marijuana after her marriage broke down, and credits the drug with weaning her off anti-depressants and controlling her anxiety. She now runs a 30-hectare legal cannabis plantation with her daughter and hosts regular pot parties where she and her fellow mums get ‘medicated’. This is a controversial angle on the drug debate that is seldom heard.

Haven’t Seen The Last of Her
For one unforgettable day, Sunday Night’s Rahni Sadler steps inside Cher’s grand Malibu mansion to talk with the pop diva about her incredible life. At 67 and on the verge of a comeback, she wanted to tell all in this pull-no-punches interview. Humble, unaffected and brutally honest, she swears like a sailor and happily dishes the truth on her famous romances, her lifelong bond with Sonny Bono, and a tumultuous career that’s seen her pick up an Oscar, an Emmy, two Golden Globes and a BAFTA. Cher’s family life has been just as eventful as her remarkable roller-coaster professional life: and she almost didn’t make it into the world. Her mother was literally lying on the abortion table when she changed her mind and one of entertainment’s biggest names was born. As a child she was placed in an orphanage while her mother battled to make ends meet. As a mother herself, she famously struggled with her daughter Chastity coming out as a lesbian, then more recently adjusted to the news that Chaz is transgender, and now her son. Showing Sunday Night around her incredible home overlooking the beach at Malibu, Cher describes her first album in 12 years as her best work to date – but the self-deprecating pop icon still admits she’s ‘not a Cher fan’ and has never liked her looks.

Sunday, September 22 on Channel Seven at 8.15pm