In her book The First Time, Cher says that by the early 70s, she and Sonny were hanging out with an older Hollywood crowd.
On election night in 1972, Sonny and Cher were invited to Jack Benny‘s house. Iconic talk show host, Johnny Carson (a Nixon supporter) was watching Nixon’s acceptance speech on TV.
Lucille Ball was also there. (She knew Cher’s mother, Georgia Holt from her small parts on I Love Lucy.)
Cher loved Lucy and says she
“was crazy about her.”
Lucy apparently found Nixon’s speech really boring and Cher says
“…she started making these great, rude jokes and noises while he was speaking. You could tell that Johnny Carson wasn’t happy – actually, he was pissed off – but he wasn’t going to say anything to her, right?
I didn’t like Nixon, either, and I couldn’t stop laughing, especially because I knew I wasn’t supposed to.”
Cher says that someone must have complained to Jack Benny about the commotion Lucy was making with Cher laughing.
“Jack was trying to be a good host and make everyone happy, so he said to Lucy,
‘You know how they are. Go sit in the den with Rosalind [Russell] and take Cher with you, then you can make jokes to your hearts’ content.”
And so, Cher left the room with Lucy who whispered to her as they were going,
“Old windbags. Come on, Cher, we don’t want to be in there with those old tight-asses anyway.”
Stephanie J. Block, who was a singer on The Cher Show, later said Lucy gave Cher some advice in her divorce from Sonny. Block said,
“She was friends with Lucille Ball and she thought, ‘who better to speak to than [one half of] Desilu Productions… Who else do you just pick up the phone and say,
‘I’m a mega star and I’m breaking up with my mega star husband? We’re not going to have a TV show anymore, and the public view — it’s going to be all this upheaval because they think we’re perfect together.’
You can’t just call anybody!?”