A federal judge has refused Cher’s request that Mary Bono repay more than $1 million in legal bills from their royalties fight over songs tied to Sonny and Cher. The ruling, issued Monday, July 20, leaves Cher responsible for a reported $1,023,605 even after she won the underlying dispute.
The decision matters because it narrows the financial payoff of Cher’s courtroom victory. Judge John A. Kronstadt said the motion failed because the rules that can force one side to cover the other’s fees did not fit this case. He said the dispute was rooted in contracts, not in federal copyright law, which meant Cher could not use the fee-shifting path she sought.
Cher’s legal team had pushed hard for repayment after winning the royalties case, arguing in January that Mary Bono had dragged the matter out by insisting, “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.” But Kronstadt was not persuaded that the fight belonged in the category that would let Cher recover those bills.
The money at issue came from a long-running fight over Sonny and Cher’s 1978 divorce settlement, which gave Cher a permanent 50% cut of publishing revenue from songs written before they split up, including “The Beat Goes On” and “Baby Don’t Go.” Mary Bono challenged that arrangement in 2021, saying she no longer had to pay under the deal because of copyright’s termination right and arguing the settlement should be treated like a songwriter selling rights to a publisher.
That argument never carried the day. In May 2024, Kronstadt ruled that copyright termination did not apply to the divorce settlement, and in November he finalized Cher’s victory. Monday’s ruling did not disturb that outcome, but it did leave the fee fight unresolved in Cher’s favor only on paper. She won the royalties case, yet the court said Mary Bono does not have to reimburse the cost of winning it.
The next question is now narrower: Mary Bono is still challenging Cher’s earlier victory in federal appeals court, and the fee ruling stands unless that broader appeal changes the legal footing of the dispute. Cher’s attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment, and Mary Bono’s attorneys also did not immediately return a request for comment.
