Cher reveals that she lost her virginity having ‘revenge sex’: ‘A massively overrated experience’

Cher may now be the queen of burlesque, but as a teenager, she wasn’t particularly interested in sex.

In her newly released self-titled memoir, the pop star reveals that she lost her virginity not because she was eager to experience intercourse, but out of a backwards attempt at vengeance.

During the early 1960s, Cher was dating a senior high school boy who lived down the street from her family. She recounts how he was kind to her when they were alone, but that he always acted like she was an “embarrassing kid” whenever his friends were around. She decided to get her revenge on him after he ditched her on a trip to Bob’s Big Boy when his buddies called her a “kid” and incredulously asked why he was bringing her along.

“I was so hurt when he did that, I had revenge sex with him,” Cher writes. “I had never wanted to, otherwise I would have done it one of the five hundred other times he asked. But I was so angry at being dismissed, I decided to, if not lose, loan out my virginity to him.”

Despite this swipe at proving she was not just a kid, Cher was unimpressed by her partner’s prowess. “When what turned out to be a massively overrated experience came to an end, I asked him, ‘Is that it? Are we finished?'” she continues. “Then I told him to go home and never come back. I wanted him to feel just as dismissed as he’d made me feel. Even though he kept trying to make it up to me, I never spoke to him again.”

It wasn’t long after this that Cher met Sonny Bono when she was only sixteen years old. They became close friends, roommates, lovers, and eventually married. Since becoming famous alongside Bono, Cher has been scrutinized in the press for her romantic relationships and unabashed sexuality — despite her initial lackluster experience.

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Her midriff-baring ensembles on television, her infamous “naked dress” at the Met Gala, and her iconic Bob Mackie Oscar look complete with a headdress have drawn censure and praise in equal measure. Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, censors often deemed Cher too provocative or sexy and tried to control her clothing and more.

She’s been linked with everyone from Gene Simmons to David Geffen to Tom Cruise to Val Kilmer, and she’s often been criticized for dating significantly younger men. It doesn’t phase Cher, however, who recently quipped, “The reason I got with young men is because men my age or older — well, now they’re all dead. Before, [men my age] just never, they were always terrified to approach me.”