Cher drops f-bomb on ‘Today’ recounting Sonny Bono divorce — and blames Hoda Kotb for snafu
If she could turn back time!
Only Cher could get away with dropping an f-bomb on live television. The “Believe” singer, 78, intentionally uttered the profanity while discussing her divorce from her late ex-husband Sonny Bono on “Today” Tuesday morning.
Cher, who just released her new memoir, talked to Hoda Kotb about how she sought advice from Lucille Ball while wrestling with the idea of leaving Bono amid their marital issues.
When Kotb, 60, asked what Ball told her, Cher replied, “I can’t say it on TV. Do you wanna bleep it?”
“We’ll bleep it,” Kotb said.
“I’d known her when I was little. I said, ‘Lucy, I’m calling you because to my knowledge there’s never been a situation besides me like yours,'” Cher explained, noting that Ball famously left Desi Arnaz in 1960.
“She said, ‘F–k him, you’re the one with the talent,'” Cher said.
Kotb and other members of the “Today” team behind the camera audibly gasped and laughed in response to Cher dropping the f-bomb.
“Okay, we didn’t get the seven second, but we will get it for the next feed,” Kotb said.
“Well you said I could!” Cher pointed out.
“I should’ve bleeped it myself,” Kotb said with a laugh. “Bleep!”
The conversation then turned to how the former couple still did “The Sonny & Cher Show” even after their divorce in 1975.
“I just managed to stay friends with him until… I don’t even know,” Cher said, adding that her and Bono’s friendship ended once he married his fourth wife, Mary Whitaker, in 1986.
“It’s crazy,” the new Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee continued. “It wasn’t that we didn’t get along. It was him telling me what to do, and me doing it. But when we were doing the show, I was better than him. We were equal. Not later — he was great. But in the beginning, he was having a hard time finding his footing. And i just walked in and said, ‘These are games. I got it.'”
Cher was only 16 when she met Bono, then 27. They were married for 11 years and had one child together, Chaz.
In her new memoir, Cher opens up about her rocky relationship with Bono, including how he allegedly stole her money from their singing and TV partnership.
“He took all my money,” Cher told the New York Times while promoting her book. “I just thought, ‘We’re husband and wife. Half the things are his, half the things are mine.’ It didn’t occur to me that there was another way.”
Cher wrote in her memoir that Bono cheated throughout their marriage, including with his assistant. She also claimed he said he “seriously thought” of killing her at the end of their marriage.
Bono died in a skiing accident in 1998. He was 62.
