Nearly 50 years after she and Sonny Bono called it quits, Cher is ready to open up about her famous relationship with the late musician-turned-politician.
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In her new book, Cher: the Memoir: Part One, the pop icon reflected on the ups and downs of her time with Sonny Bono. She admitted to being so unhappy with Bono that she considered taking her life by jumping from a hotel balcony.
The situation occurred while she and Bono were staying at the Sahara Hotel in Oct. 1972. She had told him that she was unhappy, even declaring that she wanted to sleep with their guitarist, Bill.
“He laughed a little at that and so did I,” Cher wrote about her confession, per TMZ. “It was crazy that he was telling me. He went on: ‘I figured I’d plead insanity like Spade Cooley and get seven years in jail before they released me. Then I’d get a book deal and my own show.'”
Cher responded to the remark by telling Sonny that “there would be no need to push” her because she was “gonna jump” regardless.
“I don’t think for a minute that Sonny would have actually pushed me off the balcony, but I’m sure it crossed his mind,” Cher continued. “And he knew that jumping off had also crossed mine. What else could we do but laugh?”
Cher pointed out that the conversation was the “darkest moment” of her marriage with Sonny Bono. She further shared that she was “dizzy” with loneliness at the same time. “I saw how easy it would be to step over the edge and simply disappear,” she noted. “For a few crazy minutes I couldn’t image any other option.”
Sonny Bono and Cher were married from 1964 to 1975. The couple shared transgender son Chaz.
Cher Revealed Sonny Bono Appeared at Her Doorstep Years After Their Divorce to Apologize For His Marriage Mishandlings
Continuing to write about her relationship with Sonny Bono, Cher revealed that her first ex-husband showed up on her doorstep years after their divorce to apologize for how he treated her during their 11-year marriage.
“He showed up on my doorstep in tears,” she wrote. “Sitting in my kitchen, he said to me, ‘I’m sorry for what I did to you. I was dishonest and I had all those women, and I didn’t think how it might affect our relationship.’”
While the apology “couldn’t change anything” between them, Cher stated it “felt good to know deep down inside that he’d realized for the first time how hurtful what he’d done was and was genuinely sorry.”
Following his divorce from Cher, SonnyBono married two more times. He later become a U.S. House of Representative for California’s 44th district.
Bono died in 1998 after suffering blunt forced trauma as a result of a skiing accident. He was 62 years old.