Tragic Details About The End Of Cher's Marriage To Sonny Bono

Trigger warning: This article contains mentions of suicide.

The pop duo of Cher and Sonny Bono were among the defining power couples of the 1960s and '70s. The pair famously met in 1962 — when Bono was 27 and Cher was just 16 — clearly an uncomfortable age gap. They tied the knot two years later, and went on to conquer the world of music as well as make their mark on television. What's more, their partnership served as a launching pad for Cher's astounding transformation as a solo star. Still, that last bit is somewhat indicative of the fact that Sonny and Cher's romance was never built to last, with the "I Got You Babe" singers divorcing in 1975 — though they managed to salvage a working relationship after the fact.

Over the years, Cher has made no secret of the fact that her decade-long marriage to Bono was anything but perfect, and their love story has more than its fair share of heartbreak. Ages after their split, Cher is still opening up about how exactly it all went down. One recent example is her book "Cher: The Memoir, Part One" — the first in a two-part series detailing the "If I Could Turn Back Time" singer's life and career. "Part One" shines a light on Cher's earlier years, with the beloved performer diving deep into her first marriage  — and just how dark things got as it was all falling apart.

It took Cher a long time to summon the courage to leave Sonny Bono. Surprisingly, though, Sonny was the one who initiated their split from a legal standpoint, filing for separation in 1974. Cher responded by filing for a full-on divorce, which was ultimately granted the following year. During the proceedings, Cher accused Sonny of keeping all of their shared earnings for himself.

How was he able to do that? Well, as she recalls in her book, Cher discovered that he had started a company called "Cher Enterprises" — which he owned 95% of. Bono's lawyer owned the other 5%, leaving Cher herself with nothing. "Beyond that, I was signed to the company and could only work with Sonny's permission," Cher wrote. "That meant not only did I have no money, I had no way to make any money unless Sonny signed off on it."

Cher discussed her complicated feelings about her ex in a 2010 interview with Vanity Fair. "I wouldn't have left him if he hadn't had such a tight grip," she said, adding that her ex-husband treater her "more like a golden goose than like his wife." She continued, "I forgive him, I think. ... He was so much more than a husband — a terrible husband, but a great mentor, a great teacher. ... If he had agreed to just disband Cher Enterprises and start all over again, I would have never ever left."

One particularly harrowing passage from Cher's book takes place in 1972 — which she says is around the time she started to despise her marriage to Sonny Bono. As Cher recalls, things got so bad that she considered ending her own life by jumping from the balcony of her Las Vegas hotel room.

"I was dizzy with loneliness," Cher 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," she continued. "I did this five or six times." As for how she was able to talk herself out of it, Cher says she didn't want to hurt her friends and family, nor did she — a person of great influence — want to send the message that suicide was the answer to one's problems. 

Ultimately, Cher realized there was a far less drastic solution: "I don't have to jump off. I can just leave him." She recounted the moment she initiated that conversation in a 2010 interview with Parade. "When I told Sonny, he said, 'If you leave me, America will hate you and you won't have a job,'" Cher recalled. Her response? "You know what, Sonny? I just don't care!"

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In her book, Cher's anecdote about contemplating suicide precedes the rock bottom of her marriage to Bono. Cher says he regularly cheated on her — and one night, she apparently figured she'd give him a taste of his own medicine. Cher told her husband she wanted to sleep with a man named Bill, who played guitar in their band. A shocked Sonny left them to it, though Cher and Bill didn't actually do anything that night.

However, Cher says Sonny made some chilling comments about the whole thing later on. According to her memoir, he said, "You know, after you went off with Bill that night ... I seriously thought about throwing you off our balcony." Bono allegedly continued, "I figured I'd plead insanity ... and get seven years in jail before they released me. Then I'd get a book deal and my own show."

Cher says she responded by saying, "There would have been no need to push me because I was gonna jump!" She recalls that the two then burst into laughter. "No one watching our response to what had been the darkest moment of our marriage would have understood," Cher writes. "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, and he knew that jumping off had also crossed mine. What else could we do but laugh?"

While Cher and Sonny Bono technically got married in 1964, it was not an officially-recognized ceremony. The two would not be considered legally married until 1969, when their son Chaz Bono was born. The young Chaz would unfortunately end up caught in the middle when the pop duo began proceedings to end their marriage.

As previously mentioned, when Cher divorced Sonny in 1974, she accused him of hoarding all their money. Things only got uglier from there, as Sonny responded by going after full custody of Chaz. This didn't play out quite the way he hoped, however, as Cher would be the one to win custody in 1975. Less than a week after the divorce was finalized that year, Cher married fellow musician Gregg Allman. Cher and Allman welcomed Chaz's half-brother Elijah Blue Allman one year later, though they too ended up divorcing in 1979.

Chaz Bono's complicated relationship with his parents continued into his adult years. In a 1998 interview with CNN, Chaz revealed that when he first came out as queer, Sonny was very supportive from the beginning, while it took Cher a little while to come around. Despite this, Sonny's political career ended up driving a wedge between him and Chaz. Chaz says that by the time his father died, the two had not spoken in more than a year.

Sonny Bono first entered the world of politics in the late 1980s, and was eventually elected to Congress as a Republican in 1994. He was re-elected in 1996, though Bono's second term was cut short in January 1998 when he died in a skiing accident. Bono's then-wife Mary Bono was elected to finish his second term. She continued to serve as a member of Congress until 2013.

While Bono was estranged from his son at the time of his death, he had managed to more or less make peace with ex-wife Cher at some point prior. Cher herself revealed as much in a 2023 interview with People. "One day he came into the kitchen at my house and said, 'Cher, I want to apologize. I realized that I hurt you in so many ways, and I was wrong,'" she said. "That went a long way for me." The pop sensation clarified that while Bono's apology didn't make all the pain go away, she appreciated that he was willing to own up to his mistakes.

Cher added that despite how difficult their romance often was, she and Sonny still "had so much fun together." "Working together was the easiest part of it, because we really made each other laugh," she said. "You can't fake that kind of stuff." It should come as no surprise, then, that Cher dedicated her 1998 album "Believe" to Bono's memory.