Sonny Bono Once Told Cher He Didn’t Find Her ‘Particularly Attractive’

Legendary singer Cher was married to Sonny Bono, the man who completely change the direction of her life and career, for 11 years. And even though Sonny passed away back in 1998, Cher still remembers the day she met him, and the not so kind words he had for her.

The 72-year-old Grammy and Oscar winner sat down with Gayle King of CBS This Morning and recalled the moment she saw Sonny. “Someone said, ‘there’s Sonny,’ and I turned around to look at him and I swear to God, it was like Maria at the dance,” Cher said. “Everyone just disappeared and there was Sonny…I don’t know what it was … it was something I never felt before.” Cher adds that she left home when she was just 16-years-old and was staying at a friend’s house when Sonny offered her a place to live.

“He said, ‘I don’t find you particularly attractive and I have twin beds,'” Cher recalled. Damn, Sonny, that’s just rough. And yet, Cher was all about him, admitting that it was Sonny who realized they could create something special, musically. “I didn’t realize it. Sonny realized it, I had no idea,” Cher said. “He wrote me a poem and said … ‘You’re a butterfly that deserves to be seen by all.’ He had been trying for a long time himself and had given up, and when he met me he said, ‘this is the key.'” And Sonny was of course right.

Cher also revealed how difficult it was to speak at Sonny’s eulogy, even though they had been divorced for many years at that point. “If Sonny walked in here right now, I would call him short and he would say something to me. And people would be laughing. … Nobody would understand our connection because we didn’t,” Cher said.

Aside from Sonny, Cher also told Gayle that there’s a big difference between who she is on and off the stage. “I don’t like going up to strangers. I don’t like going into restaurants … but when I’m working, I’m just another person. I’m this person who gets to be free. Cher, onstage, has no boundaries and when I go on stage … I have to go from my height to, like, 15 feet tall,” Cher explained.

And for future references, please don’t ever sing “If I Could Turn Back Time,” to Cher, because she’s so over that song, saying, “It just always makes me crazy because everyone thinks they can do it, and nobody does it.”

Cher will soon be setting foot in America during her last tour ever, titled “Here We Go Again.”