Cher’s marriage to her first husband Sonny Bono was tumultuous, to say the least. The singer met Bono, who is over a decade her senior, when she was just 16. Their relationship was complex, and one that was riddled with infidelity. The relationship began when Cher was kicked out by her roommates in Los Angeles and she was offered a room in Bono’s place in exchange for cleaning it.
Cher was abandoned by her father at a young age, and her love for Bono grew from a need to be cared for. “It wasn’t a fiery, sexy thing with us, but rather paternal, like we were bound together, two people who needed each other, almost for protection,” the singer said in 1975. The pair tied the knot in 1964, and their relationship even became the concept for their own show, “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour,” which premiered in 1971. While they seemed in love onscreen to viewers across the nation, their personal lives were crumbling. Bono referred to Cher as his “public wife” in a 1973 diary entry and admitted to living with another woman at the time. The pair ultimately filed for divorce in 1974 and it was finalized in 1975.
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In an interview with Parade, Cher admitted: “I thought about jumping off a hotel balcony,” adding, “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.’ I went, ‘You know what, Sonny? I just don’t care!'”
