Cher Celebrates 80th Birthday: A Look Back at Her Iconic Career and Romances
Her romantic history began controversially at age 16 with a brief encounter involving 25-year-old actor Warren Beatty.
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She later characterized the experience as physically and emotionally underwhelming, saying, "Not that he wasn't technically good, or could be good, but I didn't feel anything."
A close friend estimated that Beatty would rank near 15th on the singer's personal list of past romantic partners.
Shortly after, she met her long-time collaborator Sonny Bono, who was then working as an assistant to music producer Phil Spector.
"I swear to God, the moment I saw Sonny, everyone else in the room disappeared," Cher recalled.
The couple married legally in 1969 and welcomed their son, Chaz Bono.
The partnership collapsed in 1974 due to Bono's severe professional control, intense jealousy, and infidelity.
Cher filed for divorce citing "involuntary servitude."
She then married rock musician Gregg Allman in 1975, a tumultuous four-year marriage that produced her second child, Elijah Blue Allman.
She filed for divorce just nine days after the wedding after discovering illicit substances in his possession.
Following her marriages, Cher dated Kiss guitarist Gene Simmons from 1977 to 1980 in an open relationship.
She also briefly dated a young Tom Cruise in the mid-1980s after meeting at Madonna's wedding.
Passionate Romance with Val Kilmer
In the early 1980s, Cher entered a highly passionate relationship with actor Val Kilmer.
Kilmer was a Juilliard drama student 13 years her junior when they met at her 36th birthday party.
Kilmer initially believed they would share nothing in common, but the pair quickly developed an intense romantic bond that lasted for two years.
"I fell madly in love with him!" Cher said.
"He was so young. Was he 22?
What was I? I don't know.
Thirtysomething … He was so beautiful!"
The initial physical connection was exceptionally powerful, according to the singer's recollections.
"I thought my head would shoot right off my body. I had to catch my breath," she explained.
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The couple maintained a highly playful household, assigning each other comedic nicknames.
"We called ourselves Valus Maximus and Cherus Reprimandus," Cher joked.
Despite their deep mutual affection, the relationship ended because both partners possessed highly dominant personalities.
"We had unbelievable times and then put up with some times when they weren't [that way] because we were both Alpha males," she recalled.
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