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2 days ago
Cher. Mistakes happen on live TV, and Cher’s Today show flub was nothing short of hilarious.
Cher, 78, accidentally dropped an F-bomb on air while chatting with Hoda Kotb about her new book, Cher: The Memoir — Part One, on the Tuesday, November 19, episode of Today. The multi-hyphenate entertainer initially withheld sharing explicit breakup advice she received from Lucille Ball before Kotb, 60, assured her the broadcast would censor it.
Referring to her 1975 divorce from ex-husband Sonny Bono, Cher proceeded to share: “I said, ‘Lucy, I’m calling you because, to my knowledge, there’s never been a [public breakup like mine] except yours. And so, she said, ‘F— him. You’re the one with the talent.” (Ball famously split from her ex-husband and former I Love Lucy costar Desi Arnaz in 1960.)
Cher’s candid comment caused Kotb to burst into laughter after realizing the curse word had not been edited out fast enough. “We didn’t have the seven seconds, but we will get it for the next feed,” she stated, to which Cher replied, “Well, you said I could!”
Cher Relives the Sonny Bono Years in Memoir: The Biggest Revelations
“I should have bleeped it myself,” Kotb added before continuing the conversation.
On Today, the two discussed many of the revelations Cher made about her marriage to Bono in the first half of her memoir, which hit bookshelves on Tuesday. Comparing her and Bono’s first meeting in 1962 to Maria and Tony’s from West Side Story, Cher told Kotb the two of them didn’t find each other “attractive” at first. However, she did appreciate his sense of style.
“He was dressed so well. He was wearing a mole hair hair suit and he was wearing a mustard shirt with a white collar and a mustard tie and a beautiful bracelet that was, like, an I.D. bracelet that was a watch,” she shared on the NBC morning show. “And [he had] the most beautiful hands and fingers I’ve ever seen.”
The pair rose to fame as a musical duo, tied the knot in 1964, and went on to star together on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, which ended in 1974 after four seasons. According to Cher, Bono began to “change” in the middle of the variety show’s run. (The couple shared son Chaz, 55.)
She also claims that Bono took all of her earnings from the series following their 1975 split, as he owned 95 percent of Cher Enterprises. “He left me with a car and clothes,” she told Kotb.
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Despite the ups and downs, Cher “managed to stay friends with him” until around the time he married his fourth wife, Mary Bono, in 1986. The exes were reportedly on good terms when Sonny died at age 62, in 1998, as Cher gave a eulogy at his Palm Springs, California funeral.
“It wasn’t that we didn’t get along, it wasn’t not getting along. It was, like, him telling me what to do and me doing it,” she said on Tuesday. “But when we were doing the show, I was better than him. We were equal.”
When asked by Kotb to name her “greatest achievement,” Cher said it was choosing to never give up. “That’s what I know to do. People have no idea how many times I’ve been down without money, without a job,” she said.
