How Cher found out husband Sonny Bono was cheating on her

Cher has spoken about the struggles she faced during her marriage to Sonny Bono in her new memoir.

In Cher: The Memoir, Part One, the singer claims she discovered her husband was cheating on her with his secretary at the same time she was having a miscarriage.

It was while writing their next movie Chastity that Bono hired a secretary to take dictation – "a woman who happened to be young and blond", she writes.

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Cher, 78, writes of waking one night to find Bono and the secretary behaving inappropriately, seeing "the shadowy figures of Sonny helping his new assistant out the front door."

"It broke my heart, but you've got to give him an A for effort," she says.

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Cher had just suffered her third miscarriage, saying that each time she lost a baby "it was worse than the last and yet another knock to my confidence."

That night she packed a bag and stayed with her mother, who confessed she'd heard Bono had been having affairs throughout their marriage.

When confronted, Sonny allegedly laid blame on Cher. She was just 21 at the time.

"He told me he was sorry but insisted I was to blame for not having enough sex with him," she says.

They remained together, moving into a new home and continuing their collaboration.

"Sonny had been with dancers, actresses, waitresses, and even hookers in our home and on the road," Cher shared.

She found out Bono had told others they had an "open marriage" and that Cher knew of his antics, but said aside from the secretary in their house, she'd "never had the least bit of suspicion."

"I couldn't imagine where he found the time," she says.

She was later told that everybody knew but her.

Cher and Bono welcomed their son Chaz in 1969, the same year they legally married. They separated in 1972 and divorced two years later.

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"My divorce from Sonny was finalised on Friday, June 27, 1975, and it had taken so long and been so convoluted that I felt relief when it was over," she writes.

"I had my own life, and Sonny and I were friendly."

Bono died in a skiing accident in 1998 at age 62. Cher spoke at his funeral.

Cher had a second child, son Elijah Blue Allman, with ex-husband Gregg Allman, in 1976.

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