Sonny & Cher may have ruled the 60s and 70s as Hollywood’s ultimate hippie lovebirds, but their first meeting was anything but picture-perfect.
Cher reflects on her first encounter with her late ex-husband in an upcoming CBS Sunday Morning episode, admitting that it was far from love at first sight.
In 1962, a then-16-year-old Cher met 27-year-old Sonny Bono in a coffee shop, where his mohair suit and mustard shirt with a white collar made a memorable impression. “I thought it was like when Tony met Maria,” Cher shared, referencing West Side Story. “I mean, everybody disappeared.”
But while the moment felt magical to her, Bono didn’t exactly share the sentiment. “It wasn’t love at first sight,” Cher admitted. “It was something. I never felt it before.”
Bono’s feelings were clear early on. “He liked my girlfriend,” shared Cher, who was invited by Sonny to live with him as his housekeeper. “He said, ‘I don’t find you particularly attractive,’” she recalled, laughing at the memory.
Their connection grew despite (or because of) their 11-year age gap. Unlike the other women trying to court Sonny who “wanted him to be grown up,” Cher, who “didn’t expect anything” romantic, liked how Sonny was able to be “kind of childish” and hence “real” with her.
One day, Cher recalled, they “got a candle and we just water-coloured all day long… I don’t think those ladies wanted to do that.”
The two eventually became a couple, creating their iconic Sonny & Cher act in 1964, marrying that same year, and welcoming their child, Chaz, in 1969.
Unfortunately, their love story ended in divorce in 1975, and Sonny tragically died in 1998.
