Cher reveals her 1 greatest achievement: ‘People have no idea how many times I’ve been down’

Cher has amassed an endless list of accolades throughout her career, but the music icon says her greatest achievement is entirely unrelated to any awards she’s earned or albums she’s released.

The 78-year-old stopped by Studio 1A on Nov. 19 to discuss her new book, “Cher: The Memoir, Part One.” During an interview with TODAY’s Hoda Kotb, she opened up about the one thing she’s most proud of.

“My greatest achievement. I can say many things. My children, they come to my mind first,” she began. “But not giving up, and that’s what I know to do.”

Cher went on to explain that she wasn’t always as wildly successful as she is now.

“People have no idea how many times I’ve been down without money and without a job,” she said. Both topics are also touched upon extensively in her memoir.

“And then here you are crushing it and about to make some new music,” Hoda replied. “It’s all happening.”

Hoda went on to say she loves the saying “it gets greater later,” and Cher shared her own mantra that her mom, Georgia Holt, passed on to her.

“My mom said, ‘What belongs to you comes to you,'” she said. 

In her memoir, which went on sale Nov. 19, Cher recalled her tough childhood with an absent father and her rocky relationship with ex-husband Sonny Bono.

Over the course of the book, the star explained the recurring financial problems she encountered throughout her life and detailed how she climbed her way out each time.

Some of those money issues, she writes in the book, involved Bono, and she eventually found the courage to leave him after the two experienced a multitude of personal issues, as well.

While contemplating how to move forward without Bono, she spoke to actor Lucille Ball, who encountered similar issues while married to her “I Love Lucy” co-star Desi Arnaz.

“I told her, ‘Lucy, I want to leave Sonny and you’re the only one I know that’s ever been in this same situation. What should I do?’” she wrote. “Lucy and her husband had also become famous working together as stars on TV. And he was a huge womanizer too. Then Lucy had left him. She told me, ‘F— him, you’re the one with the talent.’”