Cher and Sonny formed an iconic couple. With “I Got You Babe”, released in 1965, they sang of their love, in reality not so rosy. In the first part of her memoirs, published on November 19 in the United States, the American singer, now 78 years old, recounts the lows of her marriage to Sonny Bono.
The one who met her husband at 16, he was 27, writes of finding herself “trapped” in a relationship that she describes as a “loveless marriage”. She was 26 when she considered jumping from her hotel balcony in Las Vegas. “I was dizzy by the solitude,” she says in the extracts revealed by People. I saw how easy it was to take the plunge and disappear. For a few minutes, I couldn’t imagine any other option. I did it five or six times. »
“He took all my money”
Thinking of her son Chaz, her sister Georganne and her mother Georgia, she finally gave up. Rather than jumping, the singer made the decision to leave her husband. The divorce was finalized in 1975 after a long custody battle over their son.
The couple also clashed over royalties from their joint work, with Cher claiming she had been stripped of her royalties. “He took all my money,” she explains in a recent article to the New York Times. I thought that as husband and wife, half of things were his, half of things were mine. It didn’t occur to me that there was any other option. » Sonny in fact owned 95% of the company Cher Enterprises, while the singer only worked there. The legal battle continues today with the widow of Sonny, who died on January 5, 1998, Mary Bono.
