Mama said lock you up.
That was the mother of all mantras after Cher’s mom, Georgia Holt, discovered that her underage daughter was shacking up with Sonny Bono.
The new Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee — born Cheryl Sarkisian — was just 16 when she met a then-27-year-old Bono at a coffee shop. But before the iconic duo went on to chart-topping success with “I Got You Babe” in 1965, she was more of a baby at the time.
“I lied,” Cher, 78, admitted in an interview with Anthony Mason on “CBS Sunday Morning” to promote “Cher: The Memoir,” out Tuesday, Nov. 19. “I lied to him a few times. I told him I was 18 and then someone said, ‘You know, I don’t think she’s 18.’
“So I said, ‘OK, I’m not 18 but next month is my birthday’ — which was true — ‘and I’m going to be 18.’ And then I was 17. And my mom told him she was gonna put him in jail.”
Cher moved in with Bono as what was basically a live-in housekeeper, with the agreement being that she would cook and clean in exchange for her rent.
But it was hardly “love at first sight” for the couple before they became the iconic music and TV duo who were married from 1969 to 1975.
“I thought it was like when Tony met Maria,” Cher said, referencing the star-crossed “West Side Story” couple. “I mean, everybody disappeared and it was just the two of us. But he didn’t like me.”
In fact, Bono was blunt about that.
“He said, ‘You know, you can come and stay with me.’ And I was like, ‘OK,’” she recalled. “And he went, ‘No, no. I don’t find you particularly attractive.’ So I was upset and happy at the same time.”
However, the “Believe” singer is convinced that her relative youth was part of the connection between the two before they went on to have hits such as “The Beat Goes On” and “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour” on CBS.
“He was kind of childish,” she said. “He got to be real with me because I didn’t expect anything. I didn’t want money, I didn’t think about anything, you know. And all these other women that were his age, they wanted him to be a grown up.”
Cher goes on to give one particular example when she “just watercolored all day long” with Bono.
“We [were] trying to get it right,” she said. “And I don’t think those [older] ladies wanted to do that.”
And Bono — who died in a skiing accident in 1998 — was torn about Cher becoming more of a woman than a girl. “I was like his pal, and I was just a kid,” she said. “And the first time he saw me in a bathing suit, his mouth dropped. And his face was so sad.”
Now, Cher prefers younger men, having dated hip-hop producer Alexander “AE” Edwards — 40 years her junior — since meeting at Paris Fashion Week in 2022.
“When I was younger, boys my age did not like me,” she told the New York Times. “And then when I got older, I didn’t like men my age.”