Though Cher and Sonny Bono’s marriage lasted less than a decade, their musical hits endured. Yet Cher details in her new memoir that the success of her creative partnership with her late husband wasn’t equally shared.

Cher didn’t mince words when it came to revealing the ups and downs in her personal and professional relationship with Sonny Bono. In her newly released book, Cher: The Memoir — Part One, the 78-year-old singer compared meeting Bono in November 1962 to “Maria and Tony in West Side Story,

Cher was 16 when she met the 27-year-old record producer Sonny Bono. She was 18 when she married Bono — her first marriage, his second — and 19 when the couple released the smash 1965 single “I Got You,