Content warning: This story discusses suicide. Cher is opening up about a difficult period. The "Believe" singer detailed reaching an emotional low when she began to feel "trapped" in her relationship with late ex-husband Sonny Bono , whom she divorced in 1975 following 11 years of marriage.
At one point, Cher—who was 16 when she met Sonny, then 27, and later found success alongside him as one-half of the duo Sonny & Cher —felt so "dizzy with loneliness" in their "loveless marriage" that she considered ending her life while looking out over a hotel balcony in Las Vegas. "I saw how easy it would be to step over the edge and simply disappear," Cher wrote in her book Cher: The Memoir, Part 1 , per People . "For a few crazy minutes I couldn't imagine any other option.
I did this five or six times." But the thought of setting a bad example for her loved ones—including her child Chaz , now 55, who she shares with Sonny—kept her from harming herself. As she explained, "Things like this could make people who look up to me feel that it’s a viable solution.
" Eventually, Cher came to a realization, recalling that she thought, "I don't have to jump off. I can just leave him." As for why the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour alum was so unhappy in her marriage? While Cher admitted that she and Sonny—who died in 1998 at age 62 from injuries caused by a skiing accident—had a great onscreen relationship, the 55-year-old described him as controlling and unfaithful in their personal lives.