Cher says Sonny Bono once burned her clothes in yard during troubled marriage

Cher is opening up about how her late ex-husband Sonny Bono controlled her during their marriage and musical partnership.

In Monday’s episode “Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard” The 79-year-old singer opened up about her tumultuous personal and professional relationship with Bono, who rose to fame in the 1960s as pop duo Sonny & Cher.

The former couple first met in Los Angeles in 1962, when Cher was 16 and Bono was a 27-year-old aspiring music producer. Bono, who was working with record producer Phil Spector at the time, became Cher’s mentor, manager and creative partner. The duo formed Sonny & Cher in 1964 and married during an unofficial wedding ceremony in Tijuana, Mexico, later that year.

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“We had so much fun and he was kind of special, then things started to get real dangerous,” Cher recalled.

In 1965, Sonny & Cher broke through with the success of their song “I Got You, Babe”, which peaked at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Officially married in 1969, the duo went on to release numerous other hit songs, with Bono handling songwriting, production and business, while Cher was the breakout star and the duo’s main attraction.

Their success later spread to television, and in the early 1970s they launched the variety show “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour”, which made them a household name.

Appearing on “Armchair Expert,” Cher revealed that her relationship with Bono began to unravel when, at the height of their fame, Bono began to increasingly control her day-to-day decisions.

The former couple formed the iconic musical duo “Sonny & Cher.” (Harry Langdon/Getty Images)

“This is when a new side of Sonny emerges,” Shepard said.

“Yes,” Cher nodded.

“That’s incredibly controlling,” Shepard continued. “You’ve got a lot of success. You’ve got a lot of money. You’re not allowed to leave the house. You’re allowed to go shopping. That’s pretty much what you’re allowed to do, right?”

“Yes,” said Cher.

“And it takes you away from the friendships you have,” Shepard said. “Was it happening gradually? More like, did you wake up one day and say, ‘Oh, I don’t have a life,’ or as it was happening, you thought, ‘What’s going on?’ “Did you think?”

“It took a while,” Cher admitted. “I couldn’t do anything.”

Cher talked about how she started learning to play tennis and was training at a friend’s house. The “Believe” hitmaker recalled a harrowing incident that occurred after she discovered Bono had been spotted at her friend’s house during a party after playing tennis.

“I’m leaving, but he’s having a big party. So there are people coming,” he recalled. “And so my friend Dennis told Sonny that I was there, but there were a lot of people there, a lot of men.”

“And he burned my clothes,” Cher said. “In the garden.”

Cher described Bono’s controlling behavior and recalled that he once burned her clothes in the garden during a fit of rage. (Getty Images)

Cher explained that it “kind of happened gradually” when she realized how Bono was wielding undue power over her life. The Grammy Award winner said part of her difficulty fully grasping the situation stemmed from the difference between how Bono treated her on the set of “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour” and his behavior at home.

“I was free on the show, he was funny, and we got along well,” Cher recalled. “It’s such a weird dilemma because we were laughing and having the best time and then when we were home we were a little bit more cut and dry.”

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Cher also recalled discovering that Bono had been cheating on her during the later rocky years of their marriage. After Shepard said Bono had “a bunch of other girlfriends,” Cher told him, “I didn’t know except one.”

Shepard referenced an incident Cher wrote about in her 1998 memoir, “The First Time,” when Cher went to get a glass of water in the middle of the night and found another woman “wearing her boots” at the home the singer shared with Bono.

Cher told Shepard that despite the shocking incident, she had no plans to leave Bono at the time. He explained that he’s maintained his relationship largely because of “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour.” However, he explained that his reluctance to leave was not because he was determined to maintain the huge success of the series.

“It wasn’t like that, because I was very happy with the show. He was also very good at the show. So we were having the best time in the show and we were working harder than at home,” he said. “It was so opposite, because we had so much fun on stage. He gave me all the freedom I wanted, and then we went home.”

“The show kept us together a lot longer than we normally would because we had such a good time,” he continued. “It was a lot of fun, it was very funny, and we worked very well together.”

The duo found success with their show “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour.” (CBS)

But Cher recalled becoming increasingly unhappy with their marriage and their lack of autonomy amid the power imbalance. They decided to divorce in February 1974 and their show was canceled two months later.

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Shepard recalled that he only learned how little control Cher had over the money she made during her and Bono’s divorce proceedings after Cher’s friend and music executive David Geffen asked to review her contract.

“Geffen looked at this contract and said to you, ‘Are you aware that 100% of this money goes to a company called Cher Inc., which is 95% owned by Sonny and 5% by his lawyer?’

“0% for Cher?” Shepard’s co-host Monica Padman asked in disbelief.

“0%,” Shepard said.

“It was like he was born yesterday, because they were bringing me a bunch of stock label contracts to sign, and I was like, every time I’m getting ready to go on stage,” Cher said.

“Yes, what are you going to do – read 20 pages of legalese?” said Shepard.

“And the next day he said, ‘You’ve got to get out of this,'” Cher recalled Geffen. “So I went to Sonny and said, ‘If we become partners, I’ll stay with you.’ And he said no.”

Sonny and Cher divorced in 1975. (Getty)

Shepard noted that they made “some serious, serious money” during their time working together.

“And you’re saying it wouldn’t even work with half that?” Shepard asked.

“I didn’t walk with any of them,” Cher said. “None.”

In 1975, Cher and Bono finalized their divorce, which was officially settled in a 1978 prenup.

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During the divorce proceedings, Cher learned that their finances were in dire straits. (Gunter Zint/K & K Ulf Kruger OHG/Redferns)

During the divorce proceedings, Cher also learned that their finances were in dire straits, as much of the money was spent, reinvested, or lost in ventures run by Bono.

Instead of receiving cash payments, Cher was given 50% of the publishing royalties from their work together.

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Although the divorce left Cher with limited immediate wealth, the royalty deal proved valuable in the long run, reportedly earning her tens of millions of dollars gradually over the decades.

The singer went on to enjoy a highly successful solo career. (Kevin Mazur)

Following the split, Cher embarked on a much more successful solo career, while Bono moved away from music and later entered politics.

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In 1998, Bono died in a skiing accident in Lake Tahoe, California, at the age of 62. Bono and Cher were the parents of their only child, Chaz Bono.

Cher reflected on building her own fortune while appearing on “Armchair Expert” and admitted: “I’ve never been good with men and money.”