Paul Giamatti and Cher Getty Images (2)
Paul Giamatti has been engaged in a years-long game of phone tag with none other than Cher.
Howard Stern asked Giamatti, 56, about the situation during the Wednesday, February 7, episode of his radio show. “There’s this thing around you that Cher is a huge fan of yours, and she wants to speak to you and speak with you,” Stern, 70, said.
Giamatti admitted that “every now and then” he receives a message that says Cher, 77, “really needs” to have a chat with him, noting that the tone indicates “it’s important” and “crucial” they have a conversation.
“And I’m like, ‘What the f–k?’ Why does Cher want to talk to me?’” Giamatti said. “Nobody will tell me, and then I never hear anything. And then a year will go by and then it happens again.”
There is only one Goddess of Pop — and she needs just one name: Cher. The legendary singer (born Cherilyn Sarkisian) is more than five decades into her mega-successful career, which has spanned the worlds of music, TV, film and fashion. She is just a Tony Award away from becoming an EGOT winner, with an […]
Giamatti noted that he eventually did hear from Cher — but the message only added to the confusing back-and-forth.
“Somebody … did get in touch with her, and she did call me and leave a message on my phone. All she said was, ‘I hear you want to talk to me,’” Giamatti recalled. “That was it. That was all she said.”
He continued, “And I left her a message and said, ‘That’s great, I’d love to talk to you, but I thought you wanted to talk to me.’ And that’s the last I heard, I haven’t heard anything again.”
Paul Giamatti Noam Galai/Getty Images for SiriusXM
As for why Cher may be calling Giamatti, the Holdovers star said he has “no f–king idea.”
“I don’t know what she could possibly want to talk to me about,” he said. “And it’s killing me, I’m dying to know what she wants to talk to me about. I mean, it would be great! I’d love to talk to her about anything. I don’t care, it’d be fantastic.”
Billions star Paul Giamatti is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award–winning actor who made his Broadway debut before starring in films such as American Splendor (2003), Sideways (2004) and The Holdovers (2023). The youngest of three, Giamatti came from a successful family. His mother, Toni Giamatti, was an actor and English teacher, while his father, A. […]
Elsewhere in the interview, Stern shared that he’s been in a similar situation — with Giamatti himself. Stern explained that he will receive a message from his agent “every once in a while” saying that Giamatti “needs to speak to [him].”
Giamatti seemingly cleared up the confusion when he shared that he read the radio host’s 2019 book, Howard Stern Comes Again, and wanted to tell Stern “how great [he] thought it was.”
While thanking Giamatti for his praise, Stern noted that he’s gotten a message from the actor recently. But Giamatti appeared puzzled by this admission, saying he’s only called Stern “maybe once.”
While the two never got to the bottom of their hilarious interaction, Giamatti noted that his voice has been allegedly used for “scamming people” through artificial intelligence.
“Me, of all people. Like, why? Me? What is anybody gonna fall for with me?” he joked.