Mama stated lock you up.
That was the mom of all mantras after Cher’s mother, Georgia Holt, found that her underage daughter was shacking up with Sonny Bono.
The brand new Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame inductee — born Cheryl Sarkisian — was simply 16 when she met a then-27-year-old Bono at a espresso store. However earlier than the enduring duo went on to chart-topping success with “I Got You Babe” in 1965, she was extra of a child on the time.
“I lied,” Cher, 78, admitted in an interview with Anthony Mason on “CBS Sunday Morning” to advertise “Cher: The Memoir,” out Tuesday, Nov. 19. “I lied to him a couple of instances. I informed him I used to be 18 after which somebody stated, ‘You know, I don’t suppose she’s 18.’
“So I said, ‘OK, I’m not 18 but next month is my birthday’ — which was true — ‘and I’m going to be 18.’ And then I was 17. And my mom told him she was gonna put him in jail.”
Cher moved in with Bono as what was principally a live-in housekeeper, with the settlement being that she would cook dinner and clear in change for her hire.
Nevertheless it was hardly “love at first sight” for the couple earlier than they grew to become the enduring music and TV duo who have been married from 1964 to 1975.
“I thought it was like when Tony met Maria,” Cher stated, referencing the star-crossed “West Side Story” couple. “I mean, everybody disappeared and it was just the two of us. But he didn’t like me.”
In reality, Bono was blunt about that.
“He said, ‘You know, you can come and stay with me.’ And I was like, ‘OK,’” she recalled. “And he went, ‘No, no. I don’t find you particularly attractive.’ So I was upset and happy at the same time.”
Nevertheless, the “Believe” singer is satisfied that her relative youth was a part of the connection between the 2 earlier than they went on to have hits corresponding to “The Beat Goes On” and “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour” on CBS.
“He was kind of childish,” she stated. “He got to be real with me because I didn’t expect anything. I didn’t want money, I didn’t think about anything, you know. And all these other women that were his age, they wanted him to be a grown up.”
Cher goes on to present one specific instance when she “just watercolored all day long” with Bono.
“We [were] trying to get it right,” she stated. “And I don’t think those [older] ladies wanted to do that.”
And Bono — who died in a snowboarding accident in 1998 — was torn about Cher changing into extra of a girl than a woman. “I was like his pal, and I was just a kid,” she stated. “And the first time he saw me in a bathing suit, his mouth dropped. And his face was so sad.”
Now, Cher prefers youthful males, having dated hip-hop producer Alexander “AE” Edwards — 40 years her junior — since assembly at Paris Style Week in 2022.
“When I was younger, boys my age did not like me,” she informed the New York Instances. “And then when I got older, I didn’t like men my age.”
