Sonny and Cher were so famous in the 1960s and ’70s that there was no need for a last name to be associated with the pair. This famous duo was one of Hollywood’s power couples, but the relationship wasn’t always as sunny as they made it out to be.
We break down Sonny and Cher’s relationship and look at the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of it.
How did Sonny Bono and Cher meet?
Cher and Sonny Bono first met in 1962, in Los Angeles, California. Cher was a 16-year-old high school dropout, while Sonny, 28, was 12 years older than her and worked as an assistant to Phil Spector. When the duo first met, Sonny had already been married once, but was separated from his first wife.
The two weren’t romantically involved when they met. In fact, Sonny was first interested in Cher’s friend, not her. But even from the start, they had a deep connection. In a 2018 interview, Cher recalled seeing him and feeling like “everyone just disappeared.”
At the time, Cher was living with a friend of hers and Sonny moved into a nearby apartment. When Cher was kicked out of her residence, she moved in with Sonny, and the living situation worked for them.
Shifting from a platonic to a romantic relationship
Their relationship eventually shifted from platonic to romantic. Cher, who didn’t have a strong father figure in her life, shared in a 1975 interview that the pair’s relationship “wasn’t a fiery, sexy thing with us, but rather paternal, like we were bound together, two people who needed each other, almost for protection.”
As Sonny Bono and Cher’s romantic relationship took off, so, too, did their professional careers. Cher was soon singing backup in Phil Spector’s music, including the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” and the Ronnettes’ “Be My Baby.”
Sonny was hoping to make Cher a solo act, but she wasn’t yet comfortable being on stage alone. To help with her nerves, the duo began performing and recording together, first as Caesar and Cleo, then as Sonny and Cher. Major success came in 1965 with the hit song, “I Got You Babe.”
That same year, five of their songs were in the US Billboard Top 20, and they appeared on popular television shows, like The Ed Sullivan Show (1948-71) and American Bandstand (1952-2002), further establishing themselves as major stars in Hollywood.
Times, they are a-changin’
By the end of the 1960s, Sonny Bono and Cher’s music career had slowed down, as public music tastes had shifted. Although Cher recognized that she and Sonny broke some big barriers, she realized they “didn’t change our sound. That was really wrong.”
In 1969, Sonny self-financed the film Chastity, starring Cher. It flopped and left the couple in financial distress. That same year, they welcomed their son, Chaz Bono, into the world. Sonny and Cher had held a fake marriage ceremony in 1964, but, after the birth of their child, they officially tied the knot.
Since the couple needed money to support their growing family, they began touring and performing at nightclubs. During slower nights, they started talking to the band and audience. Slowly, this banter grew into a comedy act that would later be turned into a hit television show.
In 1971, Sonny and Cher landed their own TV show, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour (1971-74). It was a huge success, tending to focus on the closeness of their relationship. Before long, it was a primetime TV staple in the early 1970s.
Sonny Bono’s womanizing ways
Unfortunately, behind the scenes, Sonny Bono and Cher’s relationship was deteriorating. The former had extramarital affairs that Cher didn’t find out about until after their eventual divorce.
However, even though Cher was unaware of Sonny’s womanizing ways, she was growing unhappy with the way Sonny treated her. In a 1999 interview, she explained, “He was like the father. You know how you can be frightened of your father even if he doesn’t ever do anything? It wasn’t like, I mean, he never hit me, never really yelled at me. He could be tough though.”
She added, “When I was young, it didn’t make any difference because I was so crazy about him on so many levels. He was really everything to me, and after I had Chaz I started to grow up and he wouldn’t allow it. He was starting to kill my spirit.”
In her 2024 memoir, Cher: The Memoir, Part One, Cher made a shocking revelation about her and Sonny’s relationship, sharing she considered taking her own life on several occasions while they were married. “I was dizzy with loneliness,” the singer wrote. “I saw how easy it would be to step over the edge and simply disappear. For a few crazy minutes I couldn’t imagine any other option. I did this five or six times.”
The only thing that stopped her? Her fans. “Things like this could make people who look up to me feel that it’s a viable solution,” Cher recalled herself thinking at the time. “I don’t have to jump off. I can just leave him.”
End of Sonny Bono and Cher?
In 1972, Cher told Sonny Bono that she was romantically involved with a guitarist in their band. In 1973, Sonny was also in a serious relationship with a woman other than Cher. These affairs didn’t result in a divorce, however, as the couple had to stay married for the sake of their television show.
At one point, Sonny was living with another woman in the same house as Cher, but the latter said she was fine with the situation, since she and Sonny had a “strange relationship.”
The couple couldn’t keep up their façade forever. In 1974, Cher filed for divorce, citing “involuntary servitude” as the reason for their split. However, they’d been separated for a while. It was a public and messy process. She discovered Cher Enterprises, the corporation formed by Sonny, was 95 percent owned by her husband and the remaining five percent was held by her lawyer.
A few days after the divorce was finalized, Cher married Greg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band. However, that marriage quickly fizzled out. Sonny then took Cher to court for custody of Chaz.
A new chapter for Sonny Bono and Cher
After their divorce was finalized, Sonny Bono and Cher both tried their hand at solo television shows. They even tried to replicate the initial success of The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour by premiering The Sonny and Cher Show (1976-77). Audiences, however, weren’t interested in an uncoupled Sonny and Cher, and the show was canceled after only two seasons.
In November 1987, the pair reunited on Late Night With David Letterman (1982-93) for an impromptu performance of “I Got You Babe.” Sadly, this would be the last time the couple sang the song together. On January 5, 1998, Sonny tragically died in a skiing accident in Nevada.
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Cher delivered the eulogy at his funeral. She closed it by saying, “When I was young, there was this section in Reader’s Digest called ‘The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met.’ No matter how old I get, no matter how many people I meet, that person will always be ‘Son’ for me.”