DON’T CALL MY BOYS TOYS
Cher is no stranger to dating younger men, but call them toyboys at your peril. “I find that term so demeaning,” she says.
She’s been married twice. First to singer Sonny Bono in the 1960s. They had a child Chaz (53) and the marriage ended after years of abuse. She then wed singer Gregg Allman and had son Elijah Blue (46) before the couple divorced in 1979.
A string of young, good-looking stars followed in the ‘80s and ‘90s, including her Mask co-star Eric Stoltz, who played her teenage son and was 16 years her junior.
She then fell for the charms of Top Gun hunk Tom Cruise, dating him for a year when he was 23 and she was 39. She also had a fling with his co-star Val Kilmer, who was 14 years younger than her.
Val wasn’t remotely fazed about dating an older woman.
“He wouldn’t be ashamed or think it was anything,” Cher says. “He was a free spirit. We called ourselves Sid and Ethel. Val didn’t want to yell ‘Cher’ and I didn’t want to yell ‘Val’.”
The two have remained good friends and Val credited her with helping him during his battle with throat cancer.
“Cher stepped in and stepped up,” he wrote in his 2020 memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry.
On her 40th birthday, Cher fell for the charms of aspiring actor Robert Camilletti (22), who the tabloids dubbed “bagel boy” over the course of their three-year romance, due to him working in a bagel shop.
“They were so mean with Robert – with ‘the bagel boy’ thing,” Cher says. “At one point I thought, ‘What will my friends say if I go out with him?’ But the more I got to know him, the less I cared what anybody thought.”
⬛he cast him in her I Found ⬛omeone music video and he accompanied her to the Oscars in 1987 when she took home the best actress gong for Moonstruck.
In 1989 they split due to the intense media attention, but Cher has described him as her “one true love” and they’re still close. “Robert comes for Christmas dinner,” she told Vanity Fair in 2020. “He’s a huge pilot now. He flies for all the biggest names in this town.”
In the ‘90s she had a twoyear romance with Bon Jovi guitarist Richie ⬛ambora, who was also 14 years younger.
“The truth was if I hadn’t gone out with younger men, I would’ve never had a date,” she told People in 2021.
“Younger men weren’t intimidated by older women. But men in my age category, they weren’t having it.”