By BETHAN EDWARDS, SHOWBUSINESS REPORTER and JULIE ANN TRAINOR
Cher has revealed she was sexually assaulted at the age of 17, by a friend's roommate's boyfriend, according to her memoir.
The two-time Grammy winner, 79, was in a relationship with Sonny Bono at the time - who she later married - but feared to tell him what had happened.
The If I Could Turn Back Time singer claimed Sonny was working late in the music studio one evening in 1963, so she decided to spend the night at a friend's house instead.
Recalling the traumatic event, she said: 'Bored and a little fearful by myself, I spent a night with my friend and former roommate Josita, who lived in a two-bedroom apartment with her boyfriend, Ulle, and another girl.
'After an evening out together, we went back to her place, where they all went to bed, and I fell asleep on the couch.
'A few hours later I was aware of somebody lying next to me with their hand in my underpants. Half-asleep, I thought I was home and then suddenly remembered that I wasn't.
'It was dark and all I could see was the outline of a man. Frozen, I lay there, my heart racing, until he moved slightly away.'
The hitmaker continued: 'Pretending to be drowsy, I got up and went into the bathroom, unsure what to do. When I heard a door close, I prayed he'd left, but the minute I realised he was still there, I ran past him into Josita's bedroom, screaming.'
Luckily, her quick-thinking friend reacted swiftly and leapt out of bed when Cher ran into his room.
'Ulle jumped up and turned on the light and saw that their roommate’s drunken boyfriend had returned home with his girlfriend, and seeing me lying on the couch, he thought he’d just lie down next to me and let his hands wander,' Cher penned.
Discussing her thought process afterwards, she added: 'It took me the rest of the night to calm down and I didn't dare breathe a word to Sonny for fear he'd murder the guy.'
Cher is now with boyfriends Alexander Edwards, 39, who she reportedly is set to tie the knot with ahead of her 80th birthday this year.
Sonny and Cher legally divorced on June 26, 1975, ending their 11-year marriage. Sonny tragically died in 1998 aged 62 following a ski accident.
Sadly this wasn't Cher's only experience with sexual predators as she detailed the 'weird' interactions she had with the late Phil Spector.
The Moonstruck actress was introduced to the songwriter back in the early 1960s through her boyfriend at the time, musician Antonino LoTempio.
He invited then 15-year-old Cher -- born Cheerily Sarkisian -- to meet Spector in his hotel room.
'He might have been a demigod to many, but he acted weird, and I didn’t like how he stared at me,' she wrote of the music producer in her book, The Memoir Part One.
The music icon recalled the heart dropping moment when he looked her 'up and down' and propositioned her in French.
'"Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?" he said, smirking, asking me to sleep with him,' Cher penned. The singer cheekily responded that she would have sex with him in exchange for money.
'Without breaking a sweat, I gave him a look back and replied, "Oui, pour l'argent."'
She followed in her book: 'You could have knocked him over with a feather. He didn’t think I’d understand the question, let alone have an answer.'
Later in the memoir, Cher also discussed the time when Spector who illegally used her vocals on a European single years after their collaboration.
Angered, she confronted Spector over the breach of her contract, only to be met with hostility. According to Cher, the producer tried to intimidate her, and things turned violent.
The late composer allegedly pulled a gun on the superstar to drive his point home.
'Staring at him in fury as he twirled it around his fingers, I said, "Don't fk with me, Phillip!''' she wrote in her book of the moment.
Discussing her thought process afterwards, she added: 'It took me the rest of the night to calm down and I didn't dare breathe a word to Sonny for fear he'd murder the guy'
Cher is now with boyfriend Alexander Edwards, 39, who she reportedly is set to tie the knot with ahead of her 80th birthday this year
'This is me, Cher, okay? ... Put that fking gun down and promise me you'll never do anything like this st with my music again, okay?' she said fearlessly.
Cher wrote that Spector quickly apologised, but she felt uncomfortable in the situation.
Though she doubted he would have ever pulled the trigger, she was still 'pissed off' over the shocking incident.
The disgraced music producer died of natural causes in 2021 while serving time behind bars for second-degree murder of Barbarian Queen actress Lana Clarkson in 2003.
Later in her memoir, the star revealed she lost her virginity at 14 to get revenge on her older boyfriend at the time.