Cher's Dating History Through the Years: Sonny, Val Kilmer
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Cher has romanced a number of Hollywood A-listers — and she’s not afraid to talk about it.
“The reason I go out with young men is because men my age or older — well, now they’re all dead — but before they just never, they were always terrified to approach me and younger men were the only ones that [were bold enough],” Cher said on the Jennifer Hudson Show in May 2024. “[They were] raised by women like me!”
Cher rose to fame in 1965 as half of the duo Sonny & Cher with Sonny Bono, whom she married the year before. They split in 1969, shortly after welcoming son Chaz.
“Sonny definitely caught my attention. I was always interested in fascinating people because those were the kind of people I grew up around,” Cher wrote in her eponymous memoir, which was published in November 2024. “He was the ’60s version of my mom’s friends. It wasn’t love at first sight. I just thought this guy was special.”
After Cher and Bono, who died in 1998, divorced, she moved on with a number of famous faces. The “If I Could Turn Back Time” singer was also briefly married to musician Gregg Allman in 1975 and they share son Elijah Blue.
Keep scrolling to revisit Cher’s complete dating history:
Warren Beatty Henry Gris/FPG/Getty ImagesCher met the legendary actor when she was 16 years old, but she hardly qualifies their fling as anything more.
“You can’t call it a relationship,” Cher quipped to Elle in 2018. “It was very Warren.”
Sonny Bono Harry Langdon/Getty ImagesBono, who was 11 years older than Cher, met at a party in 1962. The next day, she learned that Bono was moving into the same apartment building right when she was about to be kicked out of hers.
“I just went up and said, ‘Hi, listen, I’m going to have to move out of our apartment cause I’m sick and I don’t have any money and I don’t want to go home and I just want to get out and do things and I don’t know what I’m going to do but I don’t have any place to live and blah blah blah,’” the Burlesque star said during her 2018 SiriusXM special The Cher Show: Making the Musical. “And he said, ‘Can you cook and clean?’”
After two years as roommates, Cher and Bono tied the knot and subsequently started Sonny & Cher. They divorced in 1969, the same year that son Chaz was born. Bono died in 1998.
David Geffen Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesCher and the record executive, who later came out as gay, made their public debut at the 1974 Grammy Awards. They were together for two years, even discussing the possibility of marriage.
“I just had been married. I was just so frightened of it,” Cher told Extra in 2014. “At that point in his life, I was the right person for him.”
Cher was married to the Allman Brothers musician for just nine days.
“I didn’t know whether my relationship with Gregory would last or not. I was living each day as it came,” she wrote in Cher: The Memoir — Part One. “Then I found out I was pregnant, and we decided to get married.”
In the book, Cher noted that their wedding day was anything but romantic and they didn’t even go on a honeymoon.
After Cher went to the doctor for a prenatal appointment, she found out from multiple friends that Allman was planning to divorce her. When she confronted Allman, he allegedly “lied and denied it.” Cher filed for divorce the following day. He died in 2017.
Cher and the KISS frontman were set up by mutual friend Diana Ross, which he confirmed during a 2017 appearance on SiriusXM’s Radio Andy.
“I praise both women for being the amazing women they are,” Simmons added. “Cher is just beyond glamorous.”
Val Kilmer Bill Nation/Sygma via Getty ImagesCher and Kilmer, who are 13 years apart, dated from 1982 and 1984, breaking up over their age difference.
“I was madly in love with Val Kilmer and he left … because sometimes you’re only meant to stay with someone for so long. Val was really young,” she recalled on The Howard Stern Show in November 2024.
According to Cher, Kilmer was one of the “few men” to break up with her.
They remain on amicable terms, and Cher even invited the Top Gun star to live in her guest house while he battled throat cancer in 2015.
Josh Donen Barry King/WireImageThe Los Angeles Times reported in a 1985 profile of the Oscar winner that Cher and Donen were living together. Two years later, she publicly addressed their split.
“[It was] my most serious relationship since being married,” Cher told The Washington Post in 1987. “I still really love Joshua and I see him all the time. I just didn’t want to be with him anymore as a girlfriend.”
Cher and Cruise met at Madonna and Sean Penn’s wedding in 1985, later reconnecting during an event at the White House. She even confessed on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen in 2013 that Cruise ranked among her “Top 5” best lovers.
Rob Camilletti Barry King/WireImageCher met Camilletti in the bakery where he worked. At the time, she was 40 and he was 22.
“He was making bagels. I saw him and I said, ‘God that guy is so beautiful. Look at his eyes,” she recalled to the Washington Post in 1987. “I thought if he was an actor, if he was talented at all, having those eyes would be really great. I didn’t expect that we would be boyfriend and girlfriend at all.”
Camilletti accompanied Cher to the 1988 Oscars, watching her win Best Actress for Moonstruck. They split the next year.
In 2020, Cher told The Guardian that Camilletti was “like my rock.”
Richie Sambora Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagicCher met Sambora when he produced her self-titled 1987 album, but busy schedules led to their breakup.
“What happened was both of us [were] so busy, me being in Bon Jovi and Cher doing her movies and doing her tours, and her stuff … we found it hard to come together,” Sambora said during a 1992 appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show. “We still have fun together. We still always have a good relationship, although it didn’t work out in that particular aspect.”
Cher and screenwriter Zimmerman were set up by a mutual friend, first chatting via Facebook in 2010.
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“Ron is short, a bit scraggly, like an absentminded professor,” Cher told Parade at the time. “He’s the funniest person I have ever met, and the most eccentric — so bizarre and kind and very special.”
Alexander ‘AE’ Edwards Steve Granitz/FilmMagicCher initially bumped into music executive Edwards at a Paris Fashion Week event in 2022. Despite a brief split the next year, they reconciled in early 2024 and started recording music together.
“We get along really well, even though we come from two completely different worlds,” Cher gushed to the Times of London in November 2024. “I can give him a different viewpoint on music and he talks to me about Black culture in a way I could never know otherwise. I hope this isn’t taken the wrong way, but black people are so expressive. They laugh more; they cry more. Everything comes out bigger and better.”
