Cher sparked romance rumors last week when she stepped out with a music executive 40 years her junior.
The 76-year-old music legend was captured on camera as she strolled hand in hand with Alexander “A.E.” Edwards, 36, after leaving the celebrity hotspot Craig’s with rapper Tyga on Nov. 2.
Cher and Edwards shared a car as they headed to the nearby lounge The Nice Guy and were reportedly later photographed arriving together at the superstar’s mansion in Malibu.
Edwards shares three-year-old son Slash with his ex-girlfriend Amber Rose, 39. The Def Jam executive and the model split last year after he admitted to cheating on her with 12 women, per People magazine.
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The “Believe” singer also appeared to hint at her new romance in a tweet that she shared the night before her outing with Edwards. “One part of my life is SO AMAZING,” she wrote, adding a smiley face with heart eyes emoji.
Cher later confirmed their relationship status, tweeting a photo of her new love. “Alexander,” she captioned the snapshot along with a red heart emoji on Saturday.
She also added that he treats her “like a queen.”
It was far from the first time that the “Goddess of Pop’s” love life has caused a stir. Though the rumored couple quickly drew scrutiny over their significant age gap, Cher has an established track record of finding love with younger and sometimes much younger men. In 2010, Vanity Fair declared her “the original cougar, long before Demi Moore and Susan Sarandon made it fashionable.”
And while the Grammy Award winner has a long history of dating men in the music industry, her eclectic roster of lovers also includes A-list actors, a professional hockey player, a bagel baker and a Hell’s Angel.
In a 2010 interview with Parade, Cher reflected on her colorful love life and expressed that she had no regrets over her past romances. “I enjoyed them all!” she told the outlet.
“I never felt I chose badly, and I was always happy when the next man came along. I can usually last about two years with a man, and that’s it. The moment the relationship goes into the phase of more commitment, it changes.”
Here’s a look back at the many men who have romanced the icon over the decades.
Cher met Hollywood heartthrob Warren Beatty in 1962 when she was 16 and he was 25. Though Beatty was dating his “Splendor in the Grass” co-star Natalie Wood, the notorious playboy had a one-night-stand with the then-aspiring singer.
“When I was 16 years old, I f—–d Warren Beatty,” Cher told Playboy magazine in 1988, per Peter Biskind’s 2010 biography “Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America”
She continued, “Just like that. Of course, I’m one of a long list. I did it because my girlfriends were so crazy about him, and so was my mother. I saw Warren, he picked me up and I did it. And what a disappointment! Not that he wasn’t technically good, or could be good, but I didn’t feel anything. So, for me, I felt, ‘There’s no reason for you to do that again.'”
The “If I Could Turn Back Time” hitmaker was also 16 when she met her future husband Sonny Bono, with whom she would later form the iconic singing duo Sonny & Cher. At the time, Bono was a 27-year-old struggling musician and separated from his first wife, Donna Raskin.
“I swear to God, the moment I saw Sonny, everyone else in the room disappeared,” Cher told Parade in November 2010. “He was the coolest guy ever.”
The two started recording together and Cher later moved in with Bono, who divorced Raskin in 1962. Their relationship was platonic at first but eventually blossomed into romance.
“It wasn’t a fiery, sexy thing with us, but rather paternal, like we were bound together, two people who needed each other, almost for protection,” Cher said in 1975.
The two married in 1965 and welcomed their daughter Chastity – who later transitioned to a man and changed his name to Chaz — in 1969.
However, their marriage hit the rocks in the early 1970s and Bono filed for separation in 1974. Cher later filed for divorce, citing “involuntary servitude” as the reason for the couple’s split.
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Despite their bitter divorce and ugly custody battle, Cher has said that she was devastated when she learned that Bono had died in a skiing accident in 1998. She gave a heartfelt eulogy at his funeral, during which she described her ex-husband as “the most unforgettable character I ever met.”
She continued, “No matter how old I get, no matter how many people I meet, that person will always be Son for me.”
Cher began dating entertainment mogul David Geffen while she was separating from Bono. Though Geffen later came out as gay, Cher said that the two shared a genuine romantic connection.
“I was the first person to share his bed and to share his life,” Cher said in Thoms R. King’s 2001 biography “The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood.”
“People don’t believe that, or they don’t want to believe it, or they don’t understand how it could be. But we were really crazy about each other.”
Cher made headlines in 1975 when she married rock star Gregg Allman just three days after finalizing her divorce from Bono. The two met when Cher attended one of Allman’s concerts while on a date with Geffen.
Nine days after Cher and Allman tied the knot in Las Vegas, she filed to dissolve the union due to her new spouse’s drug and alcohol abuse. They reconciled after a month though their marriage was often troubled.
Allman planned to file for divorce in 1975 but backtracked after learning that Cher was pregnant. The two welcomed their son Elijah Blue in 1976.
The pair collaborated on an album in 1977 under the name “Allman and Woman”. Their first and only album “Two The Hard Way” failed critically and commercially. Cher filed for separation that year and their divorce was finalized in 1979.
After divorcing Allman, Cher went on to date another rocker, KISS singer Gene Simmons. In 1979, she told People magazine that though the two were not monogamous, it was “the best relationship I’ve ever had with a human being.”
Cher told the outlet that she was understanding of Simmons’ flings with other women while on tour and admitted to engaging in the occasional dalliance herself.
Though the two lived together with her children, they eventually parted ways when Simmons fell in love with Cher’s friend, Diana Ross.
Cher and guitarist Les Dudek, who was 6 years her junior, dated between 1979 and 1982.
In 1980, the pair formed the band Black Rose with musicians Gary Ferguson, Michael Finnigan, Warren Ham, Rocket Ritchotte and Trey Thompson. Black Rose’s first self-titled album was a flop and Cher and Dudek eventually parted ways. However, Dudek later contributed music for Cher’s 1984 movie “The Mask.”
The Academy Award winner was romantically linked to professional ice hockey player Ron Duguay for about a month in 1982. Cher was 11 years older than the New York Rangers player, a notorious playboy whom People magazine nicknamed “the Romeo of the Rink”.
Cher was rumored to be romantically involved with Eric Stoltz, who co-starred with her in “The Mask“. Stoltz, who is 15 years younger than Cher, played her son in the critically acclaimed biographical drama. However, Cher sent a scathing letter to the editors of People magazine after the outlet reported on the rumored relationship.
In the September 1984 letter that People published, Cher wrote, “Today I picked up your magazine expecting to find accuracy, intelligence and unbiased reporting. Imagine my surprise!”
The magazine issued an update, writing, “In a Startrack in the Aug. 13 issue, People linked Cher with Eric Stoltz. They are not dating, nor was Stoltz the actor Cher proposed for her leading man in [upcoming movie] Grandview, U.S.A. We apologize for the errors.”
When Val Kilmer was a newcomer to Hollywood in the early 1980s, he and Cher, who is 13 years his senior, embarked on a romance. In his memoir “I’m Your Huckleberry”, Kilmer recalled that the pair met at a birthday party that Meryl Streep threw for Cher in 1981. The two were linked from 1982 to 1984 and in 1985, Cher gushed over Kilmer in an interview with People magazine.
“Val is terrific but sometimes it’s just too intense and hot,” she told the outlet. “It’s come the closest to working.”
The singer went on to note that Kilmer had four important qualities: “sensitive, artistic, humor and he is a great kisser. My rule of thumb, and it’s never failed me, is if a man’s a good kisser he’s a great f–k.”
Last year, Cher reminisced about her romance with the “Batman Forever” star in a personal essay that she penned for People.
“He’s like nobody I’ve ever known,” she wrote. “He is exasperating and hysterical. Thrilling and funny, and doesn’t do what anyone else does. I don’t know how we stayed friends, we just did. We didn’t try. We just were.”
“I loved him – and I love him,” Cher added.
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After dating Kilmer, Cher moved on with his “Top Gun” co-star Tom Cruise, who is 16 years her junior. The pair first met at Madonna and Sean Penn’s 1985 wedding when Cher was 39 and Cruise was 23. The two encountered each other again later that year at a White House event hosted by then First Lady Nancy Reagan.
“A bunch of people who were dyslexic were invited to the White House, and Tom and I are both dyslexic,” Cher told the Daily Mail in 2018.
“We didn’t go out till way later, but there definitely was a connection there.”
“He was shy,” she told Oprah in a 2008 interview. “He said he felt like such a boob in school and nobody talked to him. We went on a date once for dinner in a New York restaurant, and the waitress was from his old school. He told me she never talked to him back in school, but now [that] he was recognized, he got all her attention.”
The “Moonstruck” actress went on to say, “It could have been a great big romance because I was crazy for him.”
Though their fling didn’t last very long, Cher listed Cruise as one of her “top five” lovers during a 2013 appearance on Andy Cohen’s “Watch What Happens Live!”
“It was pretty hot and heavy for a little minute,” she admitted. “I’ve had just the greatest lovers ever!”
Cher’s next paramour was talent agent Joshua Donen, whom she met when he was representing her then-boyfriend Kilmer. Though the two didn’t hit it off at first, they eventually went on to date for a year before calling it quits.
In 1987, Cher told the Washington Post that her romance with Donen was “my most serious relationship since being married.”
She added, “I still really love Joshua and I see him all the time. I just didn’t want to be with him anymore as a girlfriend.”
In May 1986, Cher met 22-year-old bagel baker and aspiring actor Rob Camilletti when she was out celebrating her 40th birthday in New York City. Despite their 18-year age difference, the two fell in love and dated for three years.
The superstar told the New York Times in 2010 that their relationship was the “easiest involvement” she had ever had.
“There was never a problem,” she said. “Never a worry. I’m temperamental. Not like a star, but I’m mercurial, and if I was, like, having some sort of tizzy, he’d say, ‘I’m going to get cigarettes and I’ll bring you a black and white cookie.’ “
However, the couple’s romance was heavily scrutinized in the media and Camilletti was branded with the nickname “bagel boy” even after he quit his day job at the bakery.
In 2010, Cher told Parade magazine that the two’s relationship was “torn apart by the media”. She said, “They were so mean with Robert–you know, ‘the bagel boy.'” At the time, Cher said that she and Camilletti, who became a Gulfstream jet pilot, are “still the best of friends”, adding,”he’s totally worthwhile.”
During a 2013 appearance on SiriusXM’s “The Marc and Myra Show,” a New York fan asked Cher who her true love is, to which she responded, “He happens to be from Queens, too. Robert Camilletti. An Italian from Queens.”
She reiterated the sentiment again in 2018, telling the Daily Mail that Camilletti was “possibly the one true love of my life.”
Cher and Bon Jovi rocker Richie Sambora, who is 14 years younger than her, dated from 1989 to 1990. The two stars first met in 1987 when Sambora produced her self-titled album. However, the pair’s relationship eventually fizzled out, which Sambora said was largely due to their busy schedules.
“We still always have a good relationship, although it didn’t work out in that particular aspect,” Sambora said on “The Arsenio Hall Show” in 1992, per Yahoo!
Cher expressed her admiration for Sambora’s talent in a 2018 interview with the Daily Mail, in which she referred to her ex-boyfriend as “one of the most underrated singers ever.”
During a 2010 appearance on the David Letterman Show, Cher admitted that she had slept with Eric Clapton “once”.
Cher and Hell’s Angel Tim Medvetz dated on and off from 2008 to 2013.
In the summer of 2012, rumors swirled that Cher was planning to the tied the knot in Las Vegas with Medvetz, who is 24 years her junior. However, her representative told E News! that the engagement story was false.
The two went their separate ways about a year later.
Cher dated TV writer Ron Zimmerman for about a year in 2010. During an appearance on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” the star said that they first met over Facebook and described Zimmerman as “very strange but the funniest person you ever met.”
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The California native told Parade magazine, “Ron is short, a bit scraggly, like an absent-minded professor. He’s the funniest person I have ever met, and the most eccentric — so bizarre and kind and very special.”
Fox News Digital’s Lori Bashian contributed to this report.
