At 77, Cher is defying age by dating 38-year-old record company executive Alexander Edwards. She jokes that she prefers to have younger boyfriends because all the men in her age group are already resting in heaven. But the star later explained that the reason for her relationships with younger men is because all her peers were intimidated by the strength of her personality. She always preferred to date younger men who “were raised by women like herself” and therefore never feared her.

“And the reason I hang out with younger men is because men my age or older – well, they’re all dead now,” she joked on The Jennifer Hudson Show this week.

She noted that she herself is “very shy and self-conscious about men.” Cher has a reputation for dating much younger men, such as Rob Camilletti, whom she met in 1986 when she was 40 and he was 22. Rob dated the singer when she won the Oscar for Best Actress in Moon Power in 1988.

With current partner Alexander, 38, they first met at Paris Fashion Week in September 2022, and by November the singer had confirmed their romance. When detractors trolled her on social media over the age difference, she bravely replied to them.

“Love doesn’t know maths, it hears hearts”.

Soon after, she appeared on The Kelly Clarkson Show, where she good-naturedly teased herself about dating a man who is much younger than her.

“In real life, we get along great. He’s amazing and I don’t give men qualities they don’t deserve. If I didn’t meet younger men in my life, I would never get dates because older men didn’t really like me, you know what I mean?”

On Kelly’s show, she also said:

“Younger men don’t care if you’re funny or cheeky, if you want to do stupid things and if you’re a strong personality, you know? I mean, I’m not giving my personality to anybody, OK?”

Although she and Alexander broke up in May 2023, by September they had rekindled their romance and have been together ever since.