Cher Reveals What She told Ex Val Kilmer Amid His Battle With Throat Cancer, Reflects on Being 'Madly in Love'

Cher is "Strong Enough" to move past her relationship with Val Kilmer, though she still looks upon it fondly.

The music superstar appeared on SiriusXM's The Howard Stern Show on Nov. 20 to promote her new book Cher: The Memoir Part 1. While she was there, she opened up about her past romances.

At one point in the interview, Stern asked Cher whether the men in her life "expect fabulous sex" from her given her icon status, to which she replies, "Yes, and they get it."

That's when Stern asked the question of what kind of person would ever leave Cher -- and Cher revealed Kilmer was the only one who had dumped her.

Cher previously opened up about her relationship with Kilmer and shared how they met -- at a birthday party her friend threw for her.

"We became friends because we laughed at the same things constantly," she said via The New York Post. He would sleep over and it was just a friendship [at first]. That took a long time. Well, I guess not really a long time," she continued.

However, Cher said that their age difference -- 13 years -- played a role in them breaking up, revealing that their age gap "was a bigger deal back then."

Despite their breakup, Cher added that she reached out to Kilmer following his 2021 documentary. Kilmer's 2021 documentary, Val, followed his life and career with some of the footage for the film being shot by Kilmer himself. The film also touched on his battle with throat cancer. Kilmer was diagnosed with the disease in 2015. The actor had a procedure on his trachea that damaged his vocal cords to the point where he had extreme difficulty speaking as a result. Kilmer also underwent chemotherapy to treat the cancer. His documentary went on to be a critical success at the Cannes Film Festival.

"I said, 'Valus Maximus, I'm sorry if I did anything to p--s you off or hurt your feelings. I love you and your documentary was all things ... I love the things that p--sed me off, the things that made me hysterical, amazed, hurt, astonished, etc. You are brave and beyond brilliant. Ethel,'" she said, using the nicknames they gave each other as reference.

Cher has long sung the praises of Kilmer and called him a "Renaissance man."

"He was sick and it didn't stop him. He created an extension of his art and his life. Look what he created and even the things he let you see that nobody would let you see. Even the worst things, he wanted to be in the documentary because he wanted to show you who he was," she said.

After she and Kilmer broke up, Cher moved on with his co-star Tom Cruise, who was also younger. Cher was 28 and Cruise was 23.

"Few men, few men. Look, I was madly in love with Val Kilmer and he left," she told stern.

The "Believe" songstress and the Top Gun actor were in a relationship together from 1982 to 1984. Kilmer is 13 years younger than Cher and she revealed that age played a role in their breakup.

"He was really young," Cher says when asked what went wrong between her and Kilmer.

"Because sometimes you're only meant to stay with someone so long," she continues.

The singer has been open about her past relationships with her exes in promotion of her new book, including the many difficulties she had with her former husband Sonny Bono as well as what drove her and Gregg Allman apart.

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