Cher will discuss her ‘strange’ relationship with her ex-boyfriend Sonny Bono on The Graham Norton Show – including how she was left with ‘no money’ after being scammed.
The American superstar singer, 78, joined Hollywood stars Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Josh Brolin, and singer-songwriter Jalen Ngonda on the famous red sofa, in an episode that aired on Friday evening.
Of her relationship with Sonny, she admitted, “We had a strange relationship and when I heard that he and his lawyer owned everything, and I was just an employee, I said I wanted to be 50/50 partners or I would walk.”
‘I didn’t want to leave, but I couldn’t get out of that contract, I had no money. There is no bitterness towards Sonny. I was mad at him, but I just couldn’t be mad at him. We were friends until he died.”
She revealed that she asked Lucille Ball for advice on how to leave, adding: ‘I didn’t know what to do and leaving was hard for me. Lucy was on TV and part of a couple, so I went up to her and she said, ‘f*** him, you’re the one with the talent!’
Speaking about her autobiography Cher: The Memoir, Part One and asked why she wrote it now, the singer said: ‘I don’t know. There’s no reason for almost everything I do.’
Cher to discuss her ‘strange’ relationship with ex-boyfriend Sonny Bono on The Graham Norton Show – including how she was left with ‘no money’ after being scammed
Of her relationship with Sonny, she admitted: ‘We had a strange relationship and when I heard that he and his lawyer owned everything, and I was just an employee (pictured in 1970)
When asked what it was like looking back, she says: ‘It was okay and interesting, but I didn’t feel anything. I remembered it, I wanted to do it, and I did it.
“Originally I didn’t want to tell anyone, but then I thought, I have to tell or give the money back!”
When asked if there will be another album, she revealed, “We’ll start working on the last album when I lose the book!
“I did well at Christmas and I’m praying I can get through it. You’re not supposed to sing at this age, and I hope I can do it and hit the notes.”
It comes after he revealed she was respectful in her portrayal of Sonny in her new memoir.
‘I think he would like it. I’m not sure he would like it all,” she says in this week’s issue Stellar magazine.
‘I didn’t try to portray him as a bad guy because we remained friends until the end. It was such a complicated relationship. I did my best, but sometimes it doesn’t make sense.’
Cher didn’t hold back when she admitted that she “doesn’t really care what the public thinks of her.”
‘There have been times when people just didn’t like me. People weren’t interested, or they had had enough, or they thought it was over,” she said.
Of her relationship with Sonny, she admitted, “We had a strange relationship and then I heard that he and his lawyer owned everything and I was just an employee.”
She added: ‘I didn’t want to leave but I couldn’t get out of that contract – I had no money’
It comes after he revealed she was respectful in her portrayal of Sonny in her new memoir
“What if I cared more about what people think than about doing what I wanted and who I was meant to be? You can’t take yourself seriously when you’re down, and you can’t take yourself seriously when you’re up.”
In the book, Cher writes that her marriage turned sour after Sony blamed her for his cheating because she refused to have sex with him whenever he wanted.
The legendary singer also describes her ex-husband as controlling and “Machiavellian.”
Bono went so far as to ban her from seeing her friends, leaving the house only to go shopping and even wearing perfume because the singer-turned-politician didn’t like the smell.
“There was something about him that I could never understand, something that took him from a wonderfully funny guy to someone who took everything from me,” Cher reflected in her book.
“For years I’ve been racking my brains over how he could do what he did, and to this day I still can’t get over it.”
The first part of Cher, born Cheryl Sarkisian’s, memoir is dominated by details about her relationship with Bono.
The couple met in 1962 at a coffee shop in Los Angeles, when she was introduced to one ‘Salvatore Philip Bono’.
Cher writes that he was “one of the most interesting men I had ever seen” and that she admired his “beautiful hands with long, tapering fingers.”
They hung out and became friends and when Cher told him she had been asked to move out of her apartment, Bono said she could move in with him if she cooked and cleaned the house.
“Don’t worry, I have twin beds,” he told her. “And honestly, I don’t find you particularly attractive.”
Cher described how she was both “offended and relieved” when she heard that.
The legendary singer also describes her ex-husband as controlling and ‘Machiavellian’ (Cher pictured in 2010)
The eleven year age difference (she was only 16 and he was 27) didn’t matter.
Nor did the fact that Bono was in the process of divorcing his first wife because Cher thought he was the “coolest person I’d ever met.”
Cher was taking acting classes at the time, but soon dropped out to spend her days at the famed Gold Star Studios, where Bono worked as an assistant to legendary producer Phil Spector.
According to Cher, their relationship was like “father and daughter” and she soon realized she was in love with him.
But even in these early stages, Bono was also controlling: Cher says he was “possessive” and said they never went dancing even though he knew she loved it.
Then it started to cross the line into physical as Bono pushed her against the wall with her shoulders and face clenched.
Cher told him that if he ever touched her like that again, she would “leave your a** behind,” which turned out to be an empty threat.
Their child together, Chastity, who later underwent gender reassignment in 2009 and became Chaz, was born in 1969.
Bringing a child into the world did not end the horrors of the couple’s crumbling relationship. After a tumultuous marriage, their divorce was finalized in 1975.
Bono tragically died in a skiing accident in South Lake Tahoe, California, in 1998 at the age of 62.
The Graham Norton Show airs on BBC One on Friday 29 November at 10.40pm. It is too available on BBC iPlayer