Cher “ran away” when she was nine because she was looking for an adventure.

The 77-year-old singer persuaded a friend to go “on a journey with her” and they jumped on a train for hours, only stopping when her young pal grew scared of the dark.

She recalled to Britain’s OK! magazine: "When I was nine years old, I decided was going to run away from school.

"I talked my friend into going on a journey, like going on an adventure, and we hopped on a freight train. I had no idea where was going.

“l'd thrown my lunchbox away, which my mom was more angry about than anything else, and then we just rode this train until my friend started crying because it got dark.

"So I called my mom and she was like, 'Cher! What? You're where? What have you done? Oh my God.”

However, the ‘Believe’ singer insisted she always intended to comeback home eventually.

She added: “I wasn't running away, I was going to come home but just wanted to have the adventure. I was a wild child."

The ‘Mermaids’ actress – whose mother Georgia Holt died last December aged 96 – had a “really poor” upbringing but she insisted having little money didn’t matter when it came to enjoying their Christmas celebrations.

She said: “We were really poor. But my mom always managed to do a good job. She saved her money and mostly that went into Christmas time for my sister and myself. You don't have to have a lot of money to have a fun time at Christmas."