Sonny Bono is still a touchy subject for Cher. During a Facebook Q&A with her fans on Thursday, Oct. 31, the legendary singer answered questions for well over an hour about her professional life, her favorites movies and even about Halloween. But the most shocking answer of all just so happened to be about her late ex-husband.
“Hi Cher, if Sonny Bono were still alive today, but you only had a minute to talk to him, what would you say,” a fan asked. The response? “How hot is it where you just came from?”
Cher, 67, and Bono first met in 1962 and married two years later. The husband-and-wife team broke out in the 1960s and 1970s as the iconic Sonny & Cher, with their major hit “I Got You Babe” and two TV shows. The couple welcomed their only child, Chastity Sun Bono in 1969 (now known as Chaz Bono after undergoing a gender transition in 2008), but the couple eventually divorced in 1975. Twenty-three years later, Bono tragically died of injuries from hitting a tree while skiing in Lake Tahoe in 1998 at the age of 62.
Since then, Cher has been open about their rocky romance, and has discussed what a “huge womanizer” Bono was during their marriage. “One woman, or even five, was not enough for him,” the “Strong Enough” songstress told Parade in a 2010 interview. “I found all this out afterward. I asked him, ‘How did you manage the logistics?’ I was trusting and faithful with him,” Cher said. “I’m not sure we should’ve ever been husband and wife.”
Indeed, Bono’s infidelity left Cher completely helpless and devastated. “I thought about jumping off a hotel balcony,” she admitted. “Then I thought, no, I can just leave him. When I told Sonny, he said, ‘If you leave me, America will hate you and you won’t have a job.”
The divorce ultimately left Cher struggling financially. “I had no money, and I had to pay him $2 million. It took a long time,” she said to USA Today this past September. “I worked my way into a spot in Las Vegas playing two shows a night. My managers were making more money than I was. I pride myself on still being here. A lot of people were gigantic, and then they were gone.”
