Cher ordered to pay $1,000,000 in legal fees against Sonny Bono’s widow
Jen Thomas
Featured Image Credit: Martin Mills/Getty Images
Pop icon Cher is being made to pay an eyewatering sum in legal fees against ex-husband Sonny Bono’s widow.
The 'Believe' star had filed to have her legal bills paid after winning a battle against her late ex-husband's widow, Mary Bono.
Cher was married to Sonny Bono, of Sonny and Cher fame, before they divorced back in 1978. Bono died in a skiing accident back in 1998.
According to their divorce settlement, Cher was entitled to a 50 percent cut of any publishing revenue generated by songs they wrote together before the split.
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Their biggest hits include 'I Got You Babe' and 'The Beat Goes On', and Cher spent a whopping $1,023,605 on legal fees for the court case.
According to Rolling Stone, Cher previously sold the rights to the song to Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group in 2022, with the outlet reporting that Bono wanted to do business directly with Iconic.
She sought to direct the payments to them via Sonny's estate, without including Cher.
The legal battle raged on for four years, but Cher retained her right to have her composition and record royalties paid directly to her. The star argued that Mary tried to use a 'wholly inapplicable statutory termination provision of the Copyright Act of 1976'.
Mary sought to stop payment via the 'copyright’s termination right', which allows songwriters and their heirs to win back control of their songs.
This applies even decades after they gave them away.
It was ruled in Cher's favour in May 2024, with the judge determining that Cher was owed more than $418,000 in unpaid royalties.
Cher's attorneys alleged that Bono discontinued the royalty payments in 2021.
In December 2025, a judge then determined that Cher should continue to be entitled to the payments.
According to Billboard, Cher's team alleged Mary had 'dragged' out proceedings unnecessarily and 'frivolously'.
“Defendant argued, repeatedly and frivolously, that a federal statute that expressly states it does not affect state-law rights somehow extinguishes those state-law rights,” her legal team wrote in January.
In the US, copyright law allows the winning party to have their opponent repay their legal bills in some cases.
Now, Judge John A. Kronstadt denied Cher's legal cost claim, as he says they they were incurred over a contract-law dispute instead of a copyright issue.
"It has been determined that this action arises under California contract law. In light of the foregoing, because (the Copyright Act) does not apply to the matter at issue, plaintiff's motion is denied."
Mary is also challenging Cher’s previous royalties victory at a federal appeals court. The case is ongoing.
Tyla has reached out to Cher's representatives and attorneys for comment.