EXCLUSIVE: Cher Spills Shocking Details of First 'Meet-Cute' with Sonny Before Their Tumultuous Marriage – Including Songwriter's Attempt To Seduce Her Gay Friend
The singer revealed a teacher at her prep school criticized her 'unique' voice after casting her.
Dec. 5 2024, Published 1:00 p.m. ET
Singer Cher's wild truth behind her first meeting with ex-husband Sonny Bono includes an unexpected twist no one saw coming.
RadarOnline.com can reveal it wasn't exactly love at first sight for the couple, who were later married for over a decade – in fact, she wasn't even physically attracted to him, and he was more interested in chasing her gay friend.
The singer said it wasn't 'love at first sight' when she first met Sonny as he was more interested in her friend Melissa.
In Part 1 of her new memoir, the Grammy winner went into full detail about that night in November 1962, when she and some friends were sitting at a coffee shop when the late songwriter stepped in.
Cher said "everyone was calling out" for Sonny to hop in their booth, and based on all the commotion, she expected a "tall, handsome man" to walk up behind her.
Cher knew there was something 'special' about the late songwriter and commented on his unique style choices.
The Believe singer detailed Sonny as an "intriguing stranger" with a "Caesar-style haircut", adding that he was a trendsetter with Cuban boots – which The Beatles members later became known to wear.
While Sonny wasn't what she expected, Cher said "everyone else in the room faded" when she saw him – comparing their "meet-cute" to that of Tony and Maria's in West Side Story.
Cher said she could still picture their first encounter in her mind, adding how he was "the most interesting man she'd ever seen".
She wrote: "As he sat at our table, I noticed his beautiful hands with their long, tapered fingers and a gold chain-link ID bracelet with a watch face where the name would normally have been.
"Sonny definitely caught my attention. I was always interested in fascinating people because those were the kind of people I grew up around. He was the '60s version of my mom's friends."
The singer admitted: "It wasn't love at first sight. I just thought this guy was special."
While Cher said everyone "loved" Sonny, he was immediately drawn to and fascinated by her "knockout brunette" friend, Melissa.
However, Melissa's sexuality meant she was far from being interested in Sonny.
Cher explained: "Saying little, I watched him chatting up Melissa like a pro and admired the way he put everyone around him at ease. What he didn't know was that although he amused Melissa, he wasn't her type – she was gay."
Cher admitted to feeling like she found a missing puzzle piece when meeting her birth father.
Cher added of the first night they met: "As Sonny told me years later, he couldn't figure me out that night. The truth is he wasn't trying to figure me out that night, he was trying to figure Melissa out.
"He may have wondered if I was gay or straight after learning that Melissa was the former, but she was just a friend who let me crash on her couch rent-free."
Cher went on to live with Sonny after bopping around with different friends, although her mom wasn't too happy with her 16-year-old daughter shacking up with a man 10 years her senior.
While they were friends for a while at the start, they got married in 1964 and divorced in 1975, welcoming one child, Chaz, along the way.
The collaborators had an incredibly tumultuous relationship, with Cher even admitting in her memoir to having suicidal thoughts while married to Sonny.
She wrote: "I stepped barefoot onto the balcony of our suite and stared down. I was dizzy with loneliness. 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."
The 78-year-old said she reached this point "five or six times", but each time, she would think about her child, which helped pull her away from the suicidal thoughts.
This is not the first time Cher has opened up about her rocky marriage to Sonny, even disclosing he was not faithful.
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Cher went on to marry Sonny Bono in 1964 and the two welcomed one child, Chaz, before splitting in 1975.
She said in 2010: "Stardom made Sonny a huge womanizer. One woman, or even five, was not enough for him. I found all this out afterward. I asked him: ‘How did you manage the logistics?’ I was trusting and faithful with him.
"The truth is, I’m not so sure we should’ve ever been husband and wife."
Elsewhere in her book, Cher also touched on her own affair that she had while married to Sonny, revealing she wanted to sleep with a younger guitarist named Bill – a "tall 21-year-old with a Texas drawl".
Sonny, who went on to serve as the 16th mayor of Palm Springs, California, died in January 1998.
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