After prevailing in her royalties war with Mary Bono, Cher is asking a federal judge to force Sonny Bono’s widow to cover her $1 million legal tab.
In a new motion for attorney’s fees, Cher and her lawyers say Mary should be on the hook for the staggering bill because she tried to “misuse” the termination provisions of the Copyright Act to illegally “obtain a windfall” at Cher’s expense. They claim Mary then “dragged this case out for five years by taking patently unreasonable positions.”
The federal judge on the case, U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt, said back in 2024 that Mary stepped out of bounds when she tried to use the Copyright Act to reclaim the 50 percent share of Sonny’s composition royalties granted to Cher in her 1978 divorce agreement. The judge, who made the ruling official last year, said California contract law, which governed the divorce, trumped the termination power of the federal Copyright Act.
In the divorce settlement, Sonny had assigned to Cher a 50 percent share of his composition royalties for hit songs including “I Got You Babe” and “The Beat Goes On.” Cher also got a 50 percent share of the musical recordings they made together. In court filings, Cher’s lawyers said Mary “secretly” started diverting Cher’s royalties to herself and Sonny’s other heirs after using the termination provisions of the Copyright Act to claw back grants Sonny had made to music publishers involving other compositions he owned. But Cher’s grant was untouchable, the judge found.
“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,” the new motion for attorney’s fees says. “Cher prevailed completely.”
Cher’s new motion for fees says she was forced to run up a bill of $1,023,605.50 with her lawyers to successfully defeat Mary’s “improper attempt at termination.” Mary’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but they previously asked that neither party be allowed to recover legal costs.
“We appreciate Judge Kronstadt’s efforts in the case but believe he got the law wrong on copyright terminations,” Mary’s lawyer, Daniel Schacht, previously told Rolling Stone. “It is important that authors and their heirs have the rights that Congress intended.” (Mary is now appealing Judge Kronstadt’s ruling on the publishing rights.)
Cher, 79, rose to fame alongside Sonny Bono in the 1960s before building a decades-long solo career that brought her Grammy, Oscar, and Emmy wins. Sonny died in a skiing accident in 1998, leaving Mary in charge of his estate. His music publishing grants became eligible for termination beginning in 2018.
While Cher has the right to seek attorney’s fees, it’s not clear how far Kronstadt might be willing to go. He previously declined to award attorney fees to Marvin Gaye’s estate after a jury found that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ song “Blurred Lines” infringed on the copyright for Gaye’s 1977 song “Got to Give It Up.”
A hearing on Cher’s request for the fees is set for Feb. 23.
