{"id":514889,"date":"2026-01-14T06:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T06:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/514889\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T06:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T06:32:12","slug":"cher-seeks-1-million-in-legal-fees-from-sonny-bonos-widow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/514889\/","title":{"rendered":"Cher Seeks $1 Million in Legal Fees From Sonny Bono\u2019s Widow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter prevailing in her royalties war<\/a> with Mary Bono<\/a>, Cher<\/a> is asking a federal judge to force Sonny Bono<\/a>\u2019s widow to cover her $1 million legal tab.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a new motion for attorney\u2019s fees, Cher and her lawyers say Mary should be on the hook for the staggering bill because she tried to \u201cmisuse\u201d the termination provisions of the Copyright Act to illegally \u201cobtain a windfall\u201d at Cher\u2019s expense. They claim Mary then \u201cdragged this case out for five years by taking patently unreasonable positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe federal judge on the case, U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt, said back in 2024 <\/a>that Mary stepped out of bounds when she tried to use the Copyright Act to reclaim the 50 percent share of Sonny\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the divorce settlement, Sonny had assigned to Cher a 50 percent share of his composition royalties for hit songs including \u201cI Got You Babe\u201d and \u201cThe Beat Goes On.\u201d Cher also got a 50 percent share of the musical recordings they made together. In court filings, Cher\u2019s lawyers said Mary \u201csecretly\u201d started diverting Cher\u2019s royalties to herself and Sonny\u2019s 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\u2019s grant was untouchable, the judge found.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDefendant argued, repeatedly and frivolously, that a federal statute that expressly states it does not affect state-law rights somehow extinguishes those state law rights,\u201d the new motion for attorney\u2019s fees says. \u201cCher prevailed completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCher\u2019s 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\u2019s \u201cimproper attempt at termination.\u201d Mary\u2019s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but they previously asked that neither party be allowed to recover legal costs.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe appreciate Judge Kronstadt\u2019s efforts in the case but believe he got the law wrong on copyright terminations,\u201d Mary\u2019s lawyer, Daniel Schacht, previously told Rolling Stone. \u201cIt is important that authors and their heirs have the rights that Congress intended.\u201d (Mary is now appealing Judge Kronstadt\u2019s ruling on the publishing rights.)<\/p>\n

\n\tCher, 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.<\/p>\n

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

\n\tWhile Cher has the right to seek attorney\u2019s fees, it\u2019s not clear how far Kronstadt might be willing to go. He previously declined to award attorney fees to Marvin Gaye\u2019s estate after a jury found that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams\u2019 song \u201cBlurred Lines\u201d infringed on the copyright for Gaye\u2019s 1977 song \u201cGot to Give It Up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0A hearing on Cher\u2019s request for the fees is set for Feb. 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After prevailing in her royalties war with Mary Bono, Cher is asking a federal judge to force Sonny…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":514890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[82870,171,229860,975,229861,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-514889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-cher","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-mary-bono","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-sonny-bono","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115892056441202094","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}