Las Vegas Weekly

June 4, 2009 · 7:24 AM

Cher launches multimillion-dollar lawsuit over shortchanged royalties

By Robin Leach

Cher onstage at The Colosseum.

Photo: Caesars Palace

Superstar singer and actress Cher has filed a five-count, 22-page lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court in a bid to recoup $5 million in royalties that she says she’s been shortchanged by over two of her hit compilation records with deceased ex-husband Sonny Bono.

The Caesars Palace headliner filed the lawsuit on behalf of herself and their heirs saying that an audit showed Universal Music Group executives engaged in “wrongful tactics” to hide revenues from the two albums: Cher’s Greatest Hits in 1999 and The Very Best of Cher in 2002.

Cher says that funds were diluted and concealed by having royalties from sales paid to an international middleman subsidiary that was still owned by Universal instead of going directly to its Hollywood headquarters.

In the litigious Hollywood world, don’t expect this to be resolved until after she’s finished her three-year residency at The Colosseum. You know how lawyers just love to ring up their billings with delay after delay!

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

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