Cher, who will turn 78 on May 20, has been a prolific woman in all aspects of her life. Singer, actress and model, she has had an entertaining love life. Among the most striking names on the list of her lovers are Warren Beatty, Tom Cruise, Richie Sambora and Val Kilmer. That's not counting her two marriages, to Sonny Bono and Gregg Allman. Since 2022, the Believe singer has been dating Alexander AE Edwards, a 38-year-old music executive at Universal Music Group, 40 years younger than her. He's not the only boyfriend she's had younger.
Now, in an interview on Jennifer Hudson's show, Cher has confessed why she dates men who could not only be her children but even her grandchildren. The star, 77 years old - although for a short time - has explained that she has always been “a little shy” with men in general. And she added that men her age or older seem too intimidated to approach her. “And the reason I associate with younger men is because men my age are older, well, they're all dead now, but before they were always afraid to come near me. And the younger men have been raised by women like me,” she detailed. In her opinion, men younger than her are “the only bold ones” who dare to ask her out.
Cher and her current boyfriend met at Paris Fashion Week in September 2022 and, although they had a brief separation in May 2023, they reignited rumors about their relationship in September of that same year when they were photographed holding hands after dinner in Los Angeles.
Despite the criticism that arose due to the age difference between them, Cher, who has always ignored social prejudices about her personal choices, defended their relationship by arguing that “love doesn't understand mathematics.” In December 2022, on The Kelly Clarkson Show, she reaffirmed her happiness and the strength of her bond with Edwards, calling their relationship dynamic “ridiculous on paper,” but “great in real life.” ”.
In his long list of lovers, there are other names who were even twice his age. One of her most serious relationships was with actor Rob Camiletti, whom she met when she was 40 and he was 22.
Speaking about his love life with Jennifer Hudson, he has also revealed why he rejected Elvis Presley in the past. During the interview, she explained that she had the opportunity to go out with him. However, she chose not to accept the flirtation given the environment surrounding the king of rock. "It was because she was nervous and she knew the people around her and it's not that they were bad people, it's just that she was a little nervous about her reputation...".
The actress and singer has starred in some of the most ardent love stories. The first famous person in her long list of lovers was Warren Beatty. They met in 1962; Cher was 16 years old and the actor was 25. At that time he was in a relationship with his co-star in Splendor in the Grass, Natalie Wood, but that did not stop him from dating Cher, nine years his junior.
Years later, Cher told Playboy magazine that she hooked up with Beatty "because my friends were crazy about him, and so was my mom. I saw Warren and I did it. And what a disappointment! It's not that he wasn't technically good, or It could be, but I didn't feel anything. So, for me, I felt like there was no reason to do it again." And he finished: "Warren has probably been with everyone I know, and unfortunately I'm one of them. 16 years old, maybe I can get away with that excuse. I don't know if I was stupid then, but I had pretty low self-esteem.”
In 1962 he met Sonny Bono, with whom he would form the duo Sonny and Cher. They married in 1964 and in 1969 they had a daughter, Chastity Bono, who in 2008 became Chaz Salvatore Bono, a transgender man and activist for the rights of that group. Their career as a duo reached its peak in the seventies. But off stage Sonny was an authoritarian man. In 1974, they separated.
In 1973 she had an intense romance with record publisher David Geffen, to whom she became engaged, but Greg Allman, the leader of the Allman Brothers Band, crossed her path. On June 30, 1975, four days after signing her divorce from Sonny Bono, Cher married Allman. According to Rolling Stone, on their first date, Allman passed out from heroin use in the bathroom. Her problems with drugs were a continuation of their relationship, which included a divorce, a new marriage, a son - Elijah Blue Allman - and a collaboration on an album.
At that time, when she was already around forty, she began dating younger men, generally all between ten and twenty years younger than her. “Older men rarely like me. If it weren't for the younger ones, I would never have a date,” she confessed in an interview. Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, actors Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise were some of her boyfriends from that time: “I have had, simply, the best loves in history!” She said in a 2013 interview in Watch What Happens Live. When the interviewer asked her where Tom Cruise ranked on the list, Cher answered, without hesitation, “Well, he's in the top five.”
Time and time again I believed in love after love. Film producer Joshua Donen; actor Robert Camilletti; Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora; Tim Medvetz, former member of Hell Angel's; television writer Ron Zimmerman... are also on the list of her lovers who are younger than her.
