Courts
Despite her victory in a legal feud over royalties with Mary Bono last year, Cher must pay the eye-watering legal fees she racked up
Cher will have to pick up her own $1 million legal tab racked up from her court fight with Sonny Bono’s widow, Mary Bono.
While Cher was the overall victor in their battle over royalties following a federal judge’s decision in December 2025, the singer was denied her bid to force Mary to repay her $1,023,605 legal bill, as Billboard reports. According to the publication, Judge John A. Kronstadt stated that because Cher and Mary’s feud centered mainly on contracts versus federal copyright law, the rules that would have ordered repayment did not apply in this case.
Late last year, Kronstadt sided with Cher, issuing a final judgment in the singer’s four-year royalties war with Mary, the head of her late husband’s 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’s composition royalties granted to Cher in her 1978 divorce agreement with Sonny.
