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Cher, 77, is simply “not surprised” by the public fascination leveled at her yearlong romance with Alexander ‘AE’ Edwards, 37. “Alexander’s got diamond teeth, tattoos, white hair, and he’s way younger,” the music icon told PEOPLE for an interview published on Wednesday, October 11. “He’s a beautiful man. Also, I think it’s fun to be interested in somebody else’s love life!”
In the revealing interview, Cher also looked back on how she met Alexander, and how the romance developed via text message. She told the outlet they met briefly, “for about 15 minutes,” during Paris Fashion Week in 2022. A mutual pal subsequently gave the music exec her phone number, a move she called “shocking.”
“It was really shocking, because people just don’t give out my number,” she exclaimed. “I had been telling all my friends, ‘We’re too old to go out with really younger men, and I will never fall in love on text.’ So I did what I said not to do!”
However, she added, AE is “special.” “I hate when people say people are special, but lots of people say I’m special, so I can say that he’s special,” she said. “No matter what happens, I love being with him. He makes me laugh, and we have fun. What I learned is that it’s never too late. If you wrote out all the statistics, you would go, ‘Well, this is doomed.’ But we’ve been together a year, and if it was just a year, it would’ve been worth it. I’ve had the best time.”
And while much has been made of their decades-long age gap, Cher says that’s not what’s important. “If you have happiness, you can’t think about how long it’s going to last,” she explained. “You have to think about ‘How does it feel?’ and live in the moment.”
Cher and AE Edwards subsequently began dating and went public in November of 2022. In December of last year, rumors of an engagement emerged when she wore a sparkling diamond ring from the producer. However, (lavish gift notwithstanding,) the duo is not engaged, and despite additional speculation they’d broken up last spring, they’re still going strong.
