Cher Says She Made No Money From Her Sonny And Cher Days - Here's Why

Cher and her first husband, Sonny Bono, struck gold when they joined forces for "The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour" back in 1971. During its massively-successful 3-year run, Cher's variety show got up to 30 million weekly viewers and garnered several Emmy nominations. However, despite its demonstrable success and impressive accolades, Cher didn't make much money from the hit show. During the "Believe" hitmaker's 2024 New York Times interview, she revealed that Bono structured their contract to get a bigger piece of the pie. Instead of having Cher as an equal partner, he listed the Oscar winner as an employee at Cher Enterprises. To make matters worse, Bono didn't even inform his wife about the arrangement. 

Meanwhile, in Cher's self-titled 2024 memoir, she included the shocking revelation that her then-husband owned 95% of Cher Enterprises and had left the remaining 5% to his lawyer. As a result, she couldn't even take home the money she worked so hard for. If all of that wasn't bad enough, as an employee of the company, the "Moonstruck" star couldn't take on any other jobs unless her so-called boss, Bono, gave her the green light. 

Cher confessed to the New York Times that she hadn't questioned her husband about their finances at the time because she had complete faith in him. However, the living legend acknowledged that her trust had backfired horribly, sadly sharing, "He took all my money." Cher continued, "I just thought, 'We're husband and wife. Half the things are his, half the things are mine.' It didn't occur to me that there was another way." 

In Cher's self-titled memoir, she admitted that Sonny Bono was among the most tragic details of the "If I Could Turn Back Time" singer's life, writing, "I'd worked my whole life, yet apparently I had nothing to show for it," per Business Insider. Cher added, "I'd never for a second imagined that I needed to protect myself from Sonny, of all people, yet the contracts he'd had me sign were secretly designed to strip me of my income and the rights to my own career." Upon learning of Sonny's underhanded tactics, she tried to coax him into changing the contract's terms, but he wouldn't budge. The "Strong Enough" hitmaker managed to turn the tides in her favor by getting CBS to cancel their variety show in exchange for her word that she would stick with them afterward. 

Unfortunately, Sonny continued to add to her financial woes. In a 2024 interview with The Guardian, the iconic star disclosed that she paid a whopping $2 million to Sonny because she hadn't fulfilled the obligations detailed in their strict couple's contract. Given all this, it's unsurprising that Cher sued Sonny Bono's widow, Mary Bono, over royalties in 2021. In court documents, the Grammy winner stated that she and her ex-husband had decided to evenly split the earnings from their joint musical catalog in their 1975 divorce settlement. 

However, in 2016, Mary made good use of a copyright law provision that enabled songwriters or their heirs to cut third parties out of the ownership of their works. As a result, Cher didn't get the measly $418,000 in songwriting royalties to which she was entitled until 2024, when the court finally ruled in her favor, putting the whole messy matter to rest.