Cher recalls how being denied a room at London hotel sparked her huge UK fame

Cher, 78, has opened up about the moment she and her then-husband Sonny Bono were 'kicked out' of a London hotel, as she believes the incident helped her to find fame in the UK

Cher found fame in the UK after being booted out of a London hotel.

The 78-year-old icon and her ex-husband, Sonny Bono, visited the UK for the first time in the mid-1960s, already having some success in the US. Cher believes that a clash with a hotel employee actually launched her to stardom. In 'Cher: The Memoir' she recalls: "Staring at us over the rim of his spectacles, the man behind the desk at the London Hilton gazed at my striped bell-bottoms and my husband Sonny's ruffled shirt and caveman-style fur vest as if he had an unpleasant smell under his nose."

"'I'm sorry, sir,' he said. 'We don't have any reservations in that name and our hotel is completely full.' As he walked away, Sonny leaned over to look at the leather-bound register and found our names entered in ink." Cher recalled: "The man returned 'As I explained, Mr Bono, the hotel is full.' He was so dismissive and arrogant, I could have cried."

Despite this, Cher now sees the incident as a pivotal moment in her career. The chart-topping star, who was married to Sonny from 1964 to 1975, explained in excerpts of her book.

In an excerpt from the reading that has been serialised in the Daily Mail, Cher said: "As far as I was concerned, no one in England even knew what Sonny and Cher was, but by the time we reached the Hilton's revolving doors, escorted in person by the manager, there were two reporters standing outside.

"'Sonny, Cher, did the Hilton just kick you out?' they asked. 'Was it because of how you look?'". Too exhausted to speak, I let Sonny handle everything. When the journalists had what they wanted, he hailed a taxi to take us to another hotel where the bed was lumpy, there was no TV and water trickled out of the shower."

She added: "We slept for 12 hours straight and by the time we'd bathed and dressed, we were famous." Last year, Cher candidly admitted that getting older "p****s the f**k" out of her. The Believe hitmaker appeared on hit US show, the Today show where she spoke about getting older as her hit turned 25.

She was asked by host Harry Smith:"How amazing is it that Believe is 25 years old?" Cher clapped back: "It’s not that amazing, okay?" She then added: "P***es me — It p***es the f*** out of me... It just is, like, what is this?!" Harry then said: "So you and age, you’re not friends?" Cher quickly said "no" before adding: "My mother [Georgia Holt] didn’t mind, but I do. I hate it… I’d give anything to be 70 again!"

Cher shot to fame in the 60s, with her career spanning almost 60 years. She first became a television personality in the 1970s with her CBS show The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour.

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