What Chump Stories Inspire You?

The Friday Challenge is: What chump stories inspire you? A new autobiography of Cher is out that details Sonny Bono’s infidelities and how she escaped.

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Hi Chump Lady,

I am reading part one of Cher’s memoir. Part two came out a few days ago. I was reading it just because I think she’s a really interesting person, but then I realized that Cher — Cher!! — had been cheated on and chumped by Sonny Bono.

He had affairs.

He screwed her over financially. (When they divorced, all she had was her clothes and a car.) And he was just super awful. He controlled what she wore. (He forbade her to wear mini-skirts. Can you imagine someone dictating what the post-Sonny-Bono Cher would wear?) She had to have his permission — often denied — to go anywhere. He even forbade her from listening to music. And almost without exception, every person they worked with was a Switzerland friend or even worse. Most of them didn’t say anything, although she later found out they all saw the abuse, because they didn’t want to lose their jobs.

Around Chapter 16 especially, she sounds exactly like a Chump coming to her senses, and of course, now, she takes shit from no one.

So — my idea: how about a post asking people what memoirs, biographies, novels, movies, life stories resonate with them and inspire them?

Chumplet

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Dear Chumplet,

I had no idea Cher was chumped! But that makes sense given what a badass and cultural icon she became.

Apparently Bono was a total FW and among other Schmoopies cheated with his secretary. I found this excerpt at People magazine.

One night, the star woke up thirsty, and headed downstairs to get some water. Her house at the time had a wrought-iron gate in the den, and though Cher thought she noticed “two figures,” she didn’t think much of it and went back to sleep.

But before long, she writes, she heard “rustling and whispering,” and alarm bells went off.

“At that point I knew something was wrong, but kept walking back toward our bedroom, when I saw the shadowy figures of Sonny helping his new assistant out the front door,” she writes. “It was such a f—–g cliché. It broke my heart, but you’ve got to give him an A for effort.”

Cher writes that she headed back to bed, and cut Bono off when he tried to speak to her about it. She then packed her things and headed to her mother’s house — but mom only had tough love, as she told Cher that she’d been hearing similar stories about Bono for a while.

The star writes that Bono did try to make amends, and used his “charm and persuasiveness” to win her over — but told her his tryst was her fault because she didn’t have enough sex with him.

“‘I wouldn’t have had to look outside our marriage if I was sexually satisfied,’ he insisted,” Cher recalls. “That was such bulls—, but by the time he’d finished I found myself apologizing.”

She was 21 years old at the time and had just suffered her third miscarriage.

A pox on Sonny Bono!

Anyone could tell she was way, way cooler than that fur-vested Hobbit. And in Cher’s case the moral arc of the universe bent in her favor. She’s remained a global megastar — and he died skiing into tree. #TeamCher

So, CN, your turn. What chump stories inspire you? Read any mighty biographies lately?

TGIF!