{"id":776934,"date":"2026-07-22T01:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/776934\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T01:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:36:10","slug":"cher-to-pay-1-million-legal-tab-over-royalties-war-with-sonnys-widow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/776934\/","title":{"rendered":"Cher to Pay $1 Million Legal Tab Over Royalties War With Sonny’s Widow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tCher<\/a> will have to pick up her own $1 million legal tab<\/a> racked up from her court fight with Sonny Bono<\/a>\u2019s widow, Mary Bono<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Cher was the overall victor in their battle over royalties following a federal judge\u2019s decision <\/a>in December 2025, the singer was denied her bid to force Mary to repay her $1,023,605 legal bill, as Billboard<\/a> reports. According to the publication, Judge John A. Kronstadt stated that because Cher and Mary\u2019s feud centered mainly on contracts versus federal copyright law, the rules that would have ordered repayment did not apply in this case.<\/p>\n

\n\tLate last year, Kronstadt sided with\u00a0Cher, issuing a final judgment in the singer\u2019s\u00a0four-year royalties war<\/a>\u00a0with Mary, the head of her late husband\u2019s estate. In his final judgment signed Nov. 26, 2025, the judge formally lodged his prior ruling that found Mary was prohibited from using the federal Copyright Act to reclaim the 50 percent share of Sonny\u2019s composition royalties granted to Cher in her 1978 divorce agreement with Sonny.<\/p>\n

\n\tKronstadt also ruled that Cher retains her right to have her composition and record royalties paid directly to her, even though she sold the rights to Irving Azoff\u2019s Iconic Artists Group in 2022.\u00a0As\u00a0Rolling Stone\u00a0previously reported<\/a>, Mary wanted to do business directly with Iconic and route the payments through the estate, without Cher involved.<\/p>\n

\n\tMary later challenged the judge\u2019s ruling that found Cher is entitled to half of the publishing royalties from her 1960s hit songs with Sonny including \u201cI Got You Babe\u201d and \u201cThe Beat Goes On.\u201d A federal appeals court has yet to rule on the appeal.<\/p>\n

\n\tA lawyer for Mary Bono said they \u201cdo not have any comment at this time.\u201d A lawyer for Cher did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone\u2018s request for comment.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tCher, 79, rose to fame alongside Sonny in the 1960s before establishing a decades-long solo career that brought her Grammy, Oscar, and Emmy wins. Earlier this year, the music legend\u00a0made a special appearance at the 2026 Grammy Awards to accept the Lifetime Achievement Award.<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing Sonny\u2019s death caused by a skiing accident in 1998, Mary was left to helm his estate. Sonny\u2019s music publishing grants became eligible for termination beginning in 2018, prompting Mary to notify publishers of her intent to reclaim certain interests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cher will have to pick up her own $1 million legal tab racked up from her court fight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,53671,88,166420,195505],"class_list":["post-776934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-cher","tag-entertainment","tag-mary-bono","tag-sonny-bono"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}